The Commandos of Mass Effect
by Ordo Warrior
Summary: A simple search and secure mission goes horribly wrong as Sigma Squad uses a strange device and are thrown into an new conflict. Rated M to be safe.
1. The mission that changed everything

**A/N: **This is only if an O/C team of clone commandos entered when Shepard and team arrive at the Citadel from Virmire. Also assuming the Mako is able to carry six people/ because in ME 2 squad characters from ME act like they were with you on Ilos even if your transfer game didn't use them. Another assumption is that Star Wars' Basic language is similar to Earth's English language.

This is mostly from the commandos' side so the fights have ME characters fighting but will not go into detail about Shepard's fighting. This uses the "Paragon" Shep. Later on there will be one part, at least, where people will definitely yell about it but I say whatever...it is a story sometimes things don't have to make entire sense just make it work for yeah. _Thoughts_

Review, comment and criticize but do be respectful. Not my first fanfic, just the first one posted.

P.S. Yes my username and Titles suck. Story writing I can do; name creation I cannot.

Update: Domenion I fixed the grammar issue you spotted for me and I will spread it to the rest of my work.

I'm going though every chapter and fixing more things I found inconsistent, and putting the Mandalorian translations at the bottom of each chapter...

* * *

**Intro**

The Clone Commando unit, Sigma Squad, prepared for another mission for the Republic. But unbeknownst to anyone, this mission would turn very odd. The clones were trained by Vhonte Tervho, a _Cuy'val Dar_ handpicked by their genetic donor Jango Fett. Some of the clones trained by her would call her mother or _buir_. The team in many ways was similar to the infamous Delta Squad. Sigma's leader, RC-2473, Araniik, could match Boss in both strategy and hand-to-hand combat. RC-2472, Beviin, was second-in-command and also equal to Fixer's hacking skills. RC-2433, Prudii, was one of the best snipers Vhonte has ever trained and he might be able to beat Sev in a competition but Sev's sadistic view would always keep the two at a distance. And finally RC-2445, Rang, was their demolition expert and medical chief; the one thing Scorch couldn't boast about being, medically proficient.

Vhonte gave them these names to tell them they were not just one of millions of clones created but specialist that could do their job better than the rest. Even though she was their drill sergeant for these four and others, she treated them as if they were her children even if she didn't show it like a normal mother. Vhonte could best be described as something between the strict Walon Vau and the caring Kal Skirata; she showed that she cared about them by training them to be the best and taught them how to survive alone and as a team. _Araniik_ in Mando'a meant cordon, _Beviin_ meant lance, _Prudii_ was shadow and _Rang_ translated to ash. The only reason most of the Republic knew Delta and not Sigma was because Delta was the first unit to have custom paint on their armor to identify themselves easily; the elimination of Sun Fac on Geonosis, continuing the mission of the mostly destroyed Theta Squad; destroyed a droid factory deep within the Geonosian catacombs, and to top that off, they also destroyed a Separatist core ship, stole the launch codes and the team never lost a member. Delta was good - but Sigma was just as good.

It has been over a galactic standard year since that fated day on Geonosis but it seemed that Sigma had caught a break. Their current mission involved a simple 'find and extract' objectives. Scans of a remote Mid Rim world revealed unusual energy signals that not even the Separatist use. They were to find it and secure it for transport, but Sigma knew nothing was ever that simple.

**Gearing Up**

Araniik carried all of the armaments that one would expect a clone commando to carry but he also wore a kama with a pair of DC-15s and underneath the kama hid a pair of ACP repeaters he 'relinquished' from some Trandoshan thugs on Coruscant. He had worked with Beviin to fix the overheating problem the ACP's are well known for having. Araniik's DC-17m had all of the available attachments. The armor he wore has been painted in honor of his teacher, Vhonte Tervho; a dark red covered most of the armor and black lines going down the middle of his body and legs. Araniik had also added a black Mythosaurs skull on his right shoulder guard and was given Jaig eyes for his dedication and saving his squad and gunships his squad use on multiple occasions. He carries thermal detonator tape in his pack for Rang while he carried most of the heavier explosives. Sometimes his brothers would call him Aran for short. Aran's chest had four dots on his left chest plate like Boss, to signify he was in charge of them. Araniik attached the warrior helm to the sides of his helmet; he had a warrior shield on his left shoulder guard and blaster pack around his right leg.

Beviin had taken two Geonosian force pikes as trophies after taking down his first kills alone on Geonosis. Both pikes were the electrically charged variant so they could do a number on either droid or organic opponent. The pikes are also collapsible for easy transport. Like Fixer he has three dots on his left chest plate to represent he was responsible for three lives, which included his own. Unlike Fixer though, Beviin had bonded more socially with his brothers of Sigma. Beviin's slicing skills were on par with that of the 'legendary' Fixer, as some of the other commandos viewed him back on Kamino. Rang would sometimes use the name Bev for him when he's joked with him. Beviin had no preference with his DC-17m but he was normally seen with the blaster attachment on with the blaster pack on his leg like Araniik. Beviin had a thermal scanner on his left shoulder, his backpack had a comm. pack attached to the top and his left arm carried a holo emitter. Even with everything Bev had he still carried a knife strapped to his left leg saying he would rather have one and not need it then need it and not have it. Bev had painted his armor with patters of light blue. Most of the designs do not have any particular meaning unless you asked Bev.

If Rang, Scorch and Sev were in one room together, by the end of that day the three of them would come out as good drinking buddies. Rang kept track of his kills for a mission and compared it to his brothers. Only Araniik openly entertained Rang by playing along every now and then but Beviin and Prudii tended to ignore him. Sometimes, on rare occasions, Beviin would also join in this 'fun'. His backpack was filled with any explosive the squad might need. Rang has found the 'perfect' system, as he called it. His pack was filled with so many explosives most of the crew from the Acclamator Atonement, the ship he and his squad were currently stationed on, were worried that half the ship would blow up if he ever got bumped into. Rang called it perfect because even if he started to use anything in his pack, no matter how much he moved the explosives will be unmoved somehow. Rang favored the anti-armor attachment for his DC-17m with extra ammo around his right leg. Rang's favorite weapon outside Republic standard was the LJ-50 concussion rifle with an EMP bayonet. Rang's left arm held a bacta pack for immediate medical use. His right shoulder has the trooper guard accessory, the helmet had the airman shield and Rang also had a pair of conc tubes attached to the sides of his backpack. Rang's armor was patched with dark orange color. He also had blast marks and carbon scoring all over his armor. Rumor amongst the clones is that the marks were what were left of experiments of Rang's gone awry.

Prudii was always quieter than his brothers. Prudii always had his DC-17m's sniper rifle attachment and basic blaster attachment with him, a modified Wookiee Bowcaster and the reliable DC-15s in a holster on his right leg. The bowcaster had that special cocking mechanism necessary for anyone other than a Wookiee, due to the tremendous strength normally required to pull the quarrel back. Prudii added a strap so he could just hang it around his neck resting the bowcaster on his chest. He had the bowcaster set to a single-fire mode because of his sniping tendencies and his hate for wasting ammo. Prudii wore a bandoleer across his left shoulder that carried his DC-17m ammo but mostly carried quarrel packs just for his bowcaster. His backpack was usually filled with the normal supplies along with a special attachable scope and a pair of recon droids. When the Night Ops Armor first became available, he jumped at the chance and was one of the first commandos to get this new, improved black armor. After getting the armor, he modified his gauntlet vibroblade having it extend about eight centimeters more than his brothers and adding a second one for his other gauntlet. Prudii also painted his personal bowcaster black to match. He added an electrobinocular visor to his helmet and sniper pack on his right shoulder guard. The rest of the squad was content with their basic white the new Mark III Katarn-class armor came with adding their personal paint jobs.

**The Briefing**

In the special stealth gunship the squad got a briefing from their clone advisor displayed on a holo. "All right Sigma, Intel says that you're not expecting any Seps but you and I both know that whatever Intel says expect something worse." Despite being just a clone advisor CC-05/371 had become an unofficial Sigma member and learned the rules the Mandalorian _Cuy'val Dar_ had taught the commandos. "Remember squad, just get in there and find the energy source. If you can extract it without heavy lift then call for immediate evac, otherwise hold position. This system has had reports of Separatist activity so the fleet will wait at the edge of the system if you need assistance. _K'oyacyi_, Sigma."

They arrived in the dead of night repelling down the gunship. The team carefully and slowly advanced through the forested area to their destination making sure there were no droids or Separatists allies hiding in the bush. When they were about eight hectometers from the target, the advisor gave them a heads up. "Sigma, Dagger did a fly by scan and it doesn't look good. Multiple hostiles are moving in on the energy source."

Araniik asked, "How many and where?"

"Everywhere. You're surrounded. It doesn't look good Sigma; I'm detecting a mess of B1s companied by Supers and at least four Destroyers. Wait I missed at least three Commando Droids, damn things were masking their energy signal. Careful squad, the scan was for active droids only so expect the possibility of droid dispensers, Geos…or worse."

Aran copied, "Thanks for the warning, Dag. Alright boys, you heard the man let's move it. Double time!"

When they reached the site they found an unusually large and smooth looking device with a blue core with two metal rings revolving around it. The sphere was surrounded by a stationary metal piece that extends out to points that don't connect. Rang noted, "Now that is one scary looking thing. Hey Bev, think this thing is a weapon?"

Beviin ignored Rang as he was trying to hack the thing._ I can't slice it, I don't see a command console of any type and I don't see a way of getting under the metal. Those antennas might be of some sort of significance here._ As Beviin contemplated the situation, Prudii quietly removed one of Bev's force pikes and jabbed it into a small crack he spotted.

No one noticed until Prudii started grunting as he was having trouble with removing the panel. With Araniik's help, the two commandos made an opening. With luck, none of the droids heard the metal plate as it slapped the muddy ground. Handing Beviin his pike back, Prudii told him, "Open. Analyze." Prudii then picked up the metal sheet and handed it to Rang, "Test what will destroy it." After Rang took the piece, Prudii was spotting the forest with the DC-17m blaster. He turned off his lights and looked at Araniik, "Scouting," entering the forest alone. Prudii wasn't going to be too far, but if the droids were coming he wanted to give his brothers a sign before it's too late.

Araniik had to report what they had found. "Dag can you hear me?"

Their advisor answered, "Loud and clear, Aran. What's the situation down there?"

"We found our odd device and it's truly alien. It's not like any design the Kaminoans or _Cuy'val Dar_ taught us. And it's big. Sending feed now." Araniik pressed a few buttons on the side of his helmet.

It was a few minutes before Dag responded. "Your right Araniik. No database has any information about…that. Hang tight, we'll be coming in about twenty minutes for extraction. Expect Jedi reinforcement."

Araniik turned off his communicator and turned to his second. "So Beviin, what did you find out about our new toy."

"If the data is correct, then we're looking at a very advance mass accelerator capable of…theoretically…sending a ship from one point to another. But the catch is, this thing needs a 'partner' that will slow down whatever goes through. No data on how it ended up here or who built it though. But the data indicates that it was recently activated and it was activated at least one other time, roughly 50,000 years ago, give or take a few hundred years."

Aran then asked, "Rang, what can you say about the material it's made out of?"

"It's durable, that's for damn sure. Been trying not to draw a crowd, not like the blue hue wouldn't do it, so I've used the base chemical compounds to…" Rang looked back at Araniik, who even through his helmet, didn't want to hear the details, "Right, sorry about that. Anyway if you want this thing gone, I'd have to use every explosive I have. But I'm not including that blue stuff. I ain't touching that stuff even if I had five hazmat suits over my armor and one of those isolation boxes with the push in glove holes. But saying that, the blue junk looks unstable to me. So I might just need enough to set a chain reaction to leave a large crater here. My only concern, Aran, is that you asked and we might not be able to out run the blast in time, even if the gunship could get us out."

Aran quickly said, "Set a change then."

Rang was shocked, "I…I…I'm sorry sir, but WHAT?"

Bev also didn't like the ideal either, "Sir, he's right. This thing could be one of the Republic's biggest scientific finds in history…"

"Or the Seps could learn to use it against us. If Atonement or the other ships don't get here in time, then we have no choice but to blow this thing…and us included." Araniik regretted saying that last part but it was a fact none of them could escape. Suddenly the radio pinged. It was Prudii. He normally was radio silent, even during mission debriefings. "What's wrong, Prudii?"

"Clankers." His voice was calm and quite when he talked. A series of blaster fire exchange can be heard in the background. Prudii was smart enough to know when he was out matched but until then, the team doesn't have much time left to prepare. Rang began making that special explosive with a detonator but if they all die before any of them could use it, he also set the charge to a monitoring device that would self detonate once the last vital sign goes flat. Rang hoped he doesn't have to rely on that. Beviin was still going through the systems in an attempt to find a 'deactivation code' or 'shut off protocols' or something in hopes of keeping it for the Republic. Sadly, even with all of his technical know-how, Beviin was coming up empty. There was no way of hiding the shine from the blue object and Araniik was wearing himself out as he moved stones and fallen trees for cover, using the device as a shield for their back. With Araniik and Rang finished setting thing up, Prudii came back on the radio. Blaster fire can be heard louder than ever and it was becoming visible to the squad, "Falling back."

The three of them took cover behind the makeshift defenses, ready for a fight. Prudii saw the placement and slid behind one of the trees. He was exhausted, his helmet may not have produced any sounds but his chest was heaving heavily. Quietly, Aran called their advisor, "Come on Dag, where are you?"

Their advisor answered them, "Sorry Sigma, but we've run into a droid blockade. They must really want the device. Do you think you guys can hold out for another twenty minutes?"

Rang replied, "Dag, I don't think we even have eight minutes."

Beviin shouted, "Here they come."

Looking at Rang, Prudii just said, "Sixty-four."

Rang had to ask, "What?"

Prudii repeated, "Sixty-four."

Rang then suddenly understood, "Oh. Well looks like I have some catching up to do then, huh?"

Prudii remembered Dag's number count and gave his brothers a rough update, "Eight Supers. One Commando. One Droideka. Fifty B1s."

Prudii had always counted the number of kills he got and by type, he just never had a reason to talk about it. He figured if this was going to be his last mission with his brothers, then he was going to at least tell Rang his kill count thus far.

They all remember the strength and weakness of each droid type; B1 used numbers to over whelm opponents because they are relatively weak individually, B2 or Supers were powerhouses that take more of a beating to put down however were sometimes impeded by their own size, Droidekas or Rollers had shield generator that protected them from conventional weaponry yet they can only use the shield when they stood up and it took about five seconds before they deploy their shield when shifting forms and Command Droids were created in response to the Clone Commandos; smart, quick, tough and deadly accurate, these droids were the worst, especial with the voice changing feature and bodies that can don humanoid armor, although they aren't normally used because it cost the Separatist a lot of credits just to build one. The first droids were the B1 and they could easily be taken down with a single shot. Out of the shadows the last two Commando Droids appeared. Both of were using two B1s that were destroyed as shields to soak up the fire. It would have worked to, if Rang hadn't tossed an EMP grenade at their feet just before it detonated, leaving the droids no time to react. Even when the Supers started appearing, Sigma was holding just fine until the Droidekas joined the fray. The droids unfolded and activated their shields behind the tree line.

Araniik didn't like the situation, "Damn it! Rang, are your explosives ready to go?"

Rang took cover to answer, "Yeah, but I don't think it the best time to…"

Before he could finish, Prudii shouted, "Bugs!" He took down the first Geonosian he saw with a well-placed shot between the eyes.

Aran asked, "Prudii, do any of them have sonic blasters and are there any Elites?"

Prudii answered, "None yet," focusing his fire on the incoming bugs.

Aran ordered, "Keep them away from here. Rang now would be a good time to set it up."

Rang joked, "Right, let's make the Seppies even madder than before. Too bad I'll probably be dead before I see the reaction of the rust-bucket leader losing a new toy." Rang was placing the explosives as close to the blue stuff as he wanted. He covered it with one of the downed B1's backpack.

Aran requested a status report, "Bev I hope you know how this thing works."

"In theory, but without its 'partner' there's a good chance we'll die."

"We're dead if we stay here." After Rang got back into the action, Bev began to figure out how it worked. Araniik called their gunship pilot, "Dagger, are you still with us?"

"I'm here Sigma. What's up?"

Aran said, "We're in deep here. We need air support."

Dagger asked, "Do you want an evac?"

"Negative. We plan on blowing this thing to hell and back. All we need is more time to figure out how it works and to detonate."

The comm. was silent for a moment. Then Dagger responded, "Copy that, Aran. It has been an honor to fly with you guys since Geonosis." Dagger got off the comm. and looked back into the gunship. "Alright crew, let's show Sigma what we can do and send them off with a bang."

* * *

Rang was fighting hand to hand against a duo of Geonosians, "Bugs with pointy sticks, very pointy sticks!"

"Keep it together Sigma. Bev, status report!"

Beviin was trying to finish, "Just…about…got it! We have to input our mass and run for the base here to the two prongs for it to propel us. We'll have to go in a specific order because each of our masses are different."

Aran understood, "OK then, Rang goes first."

"What? Why am I always the test subject?"

Aran simply answered, "Because you're the one with all the explosives. Bev's next, then Prudii. I'll detonate the thing…and hope I can make it though."

The advisor contacted Sigma Squad. "Aran, what the fierfek are you planning down there? I'm getting reports that you're going to try and blow it up."

"That's the plan, Dag. Best to destroy it, than let the Seps get their grease cover hands on it."

Dag was quiet but soon answered, "Good luck Sigma… _Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum_: Araniik, Beviin, Rang, Prudii. _Re'turcye mhi_!"

The stealth gunship had just arrived and it was doing a number on the droid forces. With its prototype armor and paint, the droids were having a hard time getting a lock on it. The bugs didn't have a problem but the sonic blasters were not strong enough to affect the gunship or its crew. That distraction had given Bev enough time to enter their masses. "Aran, it should be ready now!"

"_Ori'jate_ Bev! Rang go!"

Taking a deep breath, Rang ran alongside the thing, "_Fierfek_ this is going to hurrrrttttt…"

"Your turn Bev." Without whining like Rang Beviin was shot through. "Prudii hurry."

Prudii shouted _Vode An_, Brothers All_, _while running through. The droids had stopped trying to take out the gunship and were now focused on the sole commando.

"Dagger I need time for a good run and preferably not have to worry about a stray shot hitting me."

"Roger that Aran. Missiles away." The missiles had blow the forest line back a few meters along with the crossing craters in the ground.

"Thanks Dagger. Now get out of here! I'm going to blow this thing soon."

"Copy that. We'll see you on the other side someday."

"Yeah well, that day better not be today." Aran waited for the gunship to at least start to leave the planet before he pressed the detonator. Aran was running when he pushed it and tossed the detonator behind one of the rock they were using. Seconds after Araniik was sent off, the pack exploded. Rang was right about the blue stuff because once the explosion made contact, it was like shooting a blaster in a fireworks warehouse. The blast's radius was massive, as it destroyed all Separatist forces on the planet and one-third of the continent it was on.

* * *

**A/N: **I finally split this huge chapter into 3. I was lucky that it fit my '3000 word per chapter' preference.

**Mandalorian Translation: **Cuy'val Dar**- **"Those who no longer exist"

Araniik(ah-RAHN-eek)- cordon(a line of people, military posts, or ships surrounding an area to close or guard it)

Beviin(BEH-veen)- lance

Prudii(proo-DEE)- shadow

Rang(rahng)- ash

K'oyacyi(Koy-AH-shee!)- 1. "Cheers!" 2. Can also mean: "Hang in there" or 3. "Come back safely." Literally, a command; "Stay alive!"

Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum.(Nee soo-COO-yee, gar keer-AH-deesh, nee par-TIE-lee, gar dah-rah-SOOM)- I'm still alive, but you are dead. Daily remembrance of those passed on "I'm still alive, but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal." Followed by repetition of loved ones' names.

Re'turcye mhi(ray-TOOR-shay-MEE)- Goodbye - lit. "Maybe we'll meet again"

Ori'jate(OR-ee-JAH-tay)- Excellent

Fierfek- Huttese slang for poison, adopted by clone commandos as a curse word

Vode An(vohd-ay ahn)- Brothers All, also the name of a song taught to some of the clones by the Cuy'val Dar


	2. New Allies & Enemies

**A/N: **Part 2 of what was originally chapter one. I edited the first encounter to include the bit I dubbed 'Deleted Scene'.

* * *

It was the year 2183 CE in the Systems Alliance calendar. Commander Shepard of the SSV Normandy was tasked with tracking down and stopping a rogue turian Spectre named Saren Arterius. Saren had used the Conduit on Ilos and had given full control of the Citadel over to the Reaper called Sovereign. Now Shepard and his team race through Ilos to reach the Conduit before it was closed again.

The asari, Dr. T'Soni, gazed on the miniature Mass Relay the extinct Protheans created, "By the Goddess…"

The quarian, Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, was also in a similar shock, "Keelah…It's incredible!"

All the krogan and turian wanted was to move it. Wrex shouted, "We don't have time to admire the view. We have to get through that relay…and these geth aren't going to make it easy on us."

Garrus Vakarian agreed, "He's right, let go before it's closed."

Shepard floored it, as the M35 Mako driving past four Geth Colossi guarding it. The Mako was taking heavy damage and they couldn't stop to repair it or to destroy all of the Colossi before the Conduit closed. "Hang on, this is going to be rough." The Conduit enveloped the Mako in eezo before the Mako was launched half way across the galaxy, inside the Citadel.

Sovereign, accompanied by Geth Dropships, had successfully entered the Citadel before the Ward arms could close on it. In the Presidium, a pair of geth were stationed to guard the Condit's partner relay. Suddenly the eezo had begun to glow brighter. As the rings spun faster and faster, suddenly the Mako came crashing in, destroying both geth and landing upside down. Everyone was fine as they all exited the vehicle, although they were slightly dazed from the crash. The Conduit wasn't done as the rings maintained their speed as an orange armored humanoid came flying out. He was followed by a light blue one and a black one. The three of them looked like they had never seen a place like this before. After some time to regain their footing and overcome their sense of awe, they noticed the team and pulled out stranger weapons aiming at them. Wrex, Garrus and Williams were more than happy to respond in the same manner. The Conduit shot out one more armored being with red and black on it, with what looked like a skirt. It was dazed as the blue one helped him up while keeping his gun locked on a target like the rest.

* * *

After crashing, all Rang could do was make a joke about it, "Well not the best landing I've ever had but like they say, Rule 45: Any crash you can walk away from is a good one." Bev was able to roll to a stand and all Rang could say was, "Showoff."

Prudii had just as bad of a spill as Rang but he was used to it and got up faster than Rang did. Prudii was looking and was perplexed by the sky looking ceiling. "Location?"

Even Bev had no idea, "I don't know, Prudii. I've never seen anything like this or in any of the holos."

"Nice, but while you two are yapping away we have company." Rang pointed in the direction of the crashed tank-car thing. Everyone trained their DC-17ms on a target.

The matching device was still glowing brightly when their boss, Aran, made the scene. Bev was still pointing his DC-17m at the targets while offering a hand to Aran. "You alright, Aran?"

"Fine. Where are we?"

"Don't know. But we've ran into…things. Two humans, with what looks like a female Rutian Twi'lek without head-tails and three unidentified species. Two reptilian species and another in an enviro-suit."

Aran looked at the unknown group and pushed down Bev and Rang's rifles and motioned Prudii, "_Udesii_ Sigma! If they were hostile, they would have open fire by now. Unmute your helmets and activate your translators. Who knows what languages we'll be encountering. Let's see if the humans can speak Basic at least." The human male noticed Aran's actions and ordered his group to stand down as well. Aran and the rest of Sigma saluted."RC-2473, Sigma Squad of the Grand Army of the Republic."

Both Williams and Shepard also saluted back. "Commander Shepard of the Systems Alliance and Spectre."

The four commandos looked at each other in confusion, _Systems Alliance? Spectre? _The only thing either side had established was they could understand each other.

Shepard handed four small earpieces to Aran. "You're probably going to need them."

Aran nodded his head and the four of them took off their helmets revealing their faces to the strangers. They all had the same face but Prudii had scars that covered his face with the only areas that looked treated were around his eyes, mouth, nose and ears. Bev shaved his head bald. Rang dyed his hair red. Aran just left his hair in the basic military buzz cut. Aran tossed the pieces and each of them caught it without difficulty. Everyone was in shock seeing how similar they all looked. The human woman asked them, "Are the four of you brothers?"

Aran answered, "Sort of ma'am. We're clones created to fight a war against the Separatist. We are commandos used for infiltration, sabotage, assassinations, and high risk missions. Survival rates are usually low. Our creators gave us the serial numbers; our drill sergeant gave us our names. Personally we prefer our drill sergeant names for us."

The man identified as Shepard asked, "So what are your names then?"

"I'm Araniik, if that's too hard to say just call me Aran. This is Beviin, or Bev for short, he's my second and our squad's slicer. Rang is our medic and explosives specialist. Last is Prudii who is our sniper and scout."

Shepard then asked, "So who created you guys?"

Araniik wasn't afraid to say, "Kaminoans. Tall, white, lengthy beings. Now that I think about it, Taun We was the only one that actually had shown us any emotions."

Rang then commented, "Now it's our turn to ask you guys 'twenty questions'. What are they?" Rang was looking at the two strange looking reptiles in particular.

The Twi'lek looking woman spoke first as she was fascinated by these strange beings, "My name is Liara T'Soni and I am an asari. My people first found the Citadel and we live for a thousand years." The clones were shocked to hear the device translate so fast in real time.

The larger reptile with a hump spoke next, "Name's Urdnot Wrex. Krogan. We were once proud warriors striped of our ways by a genetic mutation."

The slender reptile with aviary features then spoke, "Garrus Vakarian. I am a turian. We are the soldiers of the Citadel with the largest fleet in service."

Last was the female wearing the enviro-suit, "My name is Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, and I'm a quarian."

Shepard then asked Sigma Squad, "How did you guys end up here?"

Beviin tried to keep it truthful and brief, "Long story short; we found something like that and used it before we blew it up."

The blue woman, Liara was in shock, "How did you manage to destroy a Mass Relay?"

Rang proudly said, "Personal patented explosives…plus that blue junk in the middle kinda helped."

Tali thought about it and determined, "Yes…if you could generate a big enough explosion and if it was created by the Protheans the metal shouldn't be able to take the blast."

The turian, Garrus asked "So what's a Separatist exactly?"

Araniik said, "Planets, governments, and corporations that left the Republic to follow the Sith. I don't know the details but we were made to fight them for the Republic."

"They created you to fight and die for a war?" Tali was shocked to hear this.

Aran clarified, "The Seps use droids, bugs and any merc stupid or brave enough to work for them. We only have our brothers and the Jedi. But enough with the pleasantry, it looks like you're in need of assistance."

Wrex then noted, "With the fire power their packing Shepard, they might be worth taking along."

Prudii had wander off looking at three spikes with cybernetic looking bodies. As he got closer one of the spikes lowered and the body sprang to life, so to speak. The woman in white and pink armor was about to shot at it but Aran pushed her rifle down. He had his other hand on one of the DC-15s on his kama, ready to help if his _vod_ needed it. Prudii drew out his wrist blades and began to strike at the normal vital spots on the odd body. After about five body strikes, Prudii twisted the head backwards and kicked the body away. The next one was stabbed in the chest and lifted over his head then after landing it, he smashed the head under his boot. The last one he broke the arms of then jabbed the jaw from underneath as he proceeded to rip the head and spine out from the rest of the body. With the skull and spine removed, the body slummed to the ground and Prudii tossed the head as far as he could then cleaned his arms and blades with a swish. He pulled out his DC-15s pistol and shot the three bodies multiple times. "Rule 17: Always make sure they're dead."

Garrus added, "Let's hurry. The Council has probably been evacuated to the Destiny Ascension by now. Let's move to the Tower and stop Saren."

* * *

On their way up, the elevator suddenly stopped. "Saren has locked the elevator! Suit up-we're going outside!" The four commandos sealed their suits like the enviro-suit wearing Tali, while everyone else was putting on helmets. With everyone's helmets on, Sigma Squad pulled out their pistols and shot out the glass.

"Commandos, use your DC-15s for now. I don't expect we'll find a gonk droid or ammo any time soon." They move to the exterior. "Activate your magnetic boots." As the commandos looked toward the destination they were heading, all four of them were in shock. They saw a massive squid-shaped ship, as it ripped away at the structure they were on.

Rang had to yell this, "What the _FIERFEK_ IS THAT?"

Shepard answered, "A Reaper. Let's move we don't have much time." As this team of ten moved up, another elevator appeared and blew out the glass to reveal several machines. The commandos didn't know what they were but they reminded them of the clankers they fought back in their galaxy. Without hesitation, Prudii made precision shots into the big flashlight of one of their heads. Their weapons ripped straight through its shield and blasted the head off the body. Prudii was able to take down a second one that was trying to use the smoke as cover, but Prudii was still able to kill it. The strangers and the mechs were using odd looking slugthrowers. Sigma Squad didn't want to see if their armor could take a hit, so when the fire got heavier, they took cover and let their new allies deal with them. They still shot but took cover the moment the mechs fired at them.

Wrex got irritated at them after the fighting was finished, "What the hell was that! You put on a good show down stairs but now you pussy out!"

Bev defended their actions, "Our shields were meant for energy weapons. At the speed and velocity your slugs were moving, I'd rather not find out what they'd do to our armor out here."

Tali stepped in, "I might be able modify your current shields to also work like kinetic barriers but I don't have any understanding of your technology."

Bev walked towards her, "I'll help and we'll work on my suit first." It took the two of them about three minutes before they had something. Bev then stood up and threw his arms out, "Shot me, right here." Bev was pointing to his heart.

Rang and Aran didn't like the tone of his voice. "Bev, what are you doing?"

"If it works we'll be kicking clanker-ass just like we use to, otherwise we'll just end up dead. If my suit ruptures, I'm dead. So might as well make it quick if the new shield doesn't work."

Wrex pulled out his pistol and aimed at him, "I like your style. Not afraid to die for your clan." Before anyone else could do anything, Wrex pulled the trigger and Bev closed his eyes waiting for the impact.

Bev opened his eyes to find he was still alive and his helmet's HUD indicated that his shields barely registered any damage from the shot and his vitals were all green. "OK Sigma, lets mod these shield so we can do what were made for; killing droids."

With Tali and Bev working together it only took them about two more minutes to fix the rest of Sigma Squad's shields. While they waited Sigma picked up the odd weapons the machines were using while still relying on their DC-15s pistols. Now Araniik took point and spotted another mech. He shot the pistol bringing down the mech with ease. Garrus then shouted "Destroyer watch out." Instinctively the four commandos were on the lookout for a rolling ball of machine but instead found a larger black form of the mechs they've been fighting. With all four firing blaster bolts at it, the mech was only able to fire a large red shot that everyone was able to avoid.

Tali used her scanner to locate targets, "We have two more Destroyers incoming."

Wrex sounded pleased when he said, "Krogan Warlord, he's mine!"

Prudii switched to his DC-17m sniper configuration and blasted the heads off both mechs with one shot each. Prudii had plenty of clips and he wanted to feel his old friend fire in his hands again. With the geth now destroyed, Wrex charged towards the other krogan as the two of them were locked in a fist fight. Blow for blow, neither one attempted to block or dodge the attacks until the adversary lose his balance. Wrex saw his opening and began to glow blue, as he gave his opponent an uppercut that sent him flying out into one of the Wards. The commandos saw this as a primitive form of what the Jedi use and were not as impressed as they were the first time they saw a Jedi in action. Moving on, they found a walkway going up with hexagon shaped shields placed in various locations and sizes. Suddenly four geth behind the shields began to open fire. Now that the commandos didn't have to worry about their shield or health, they engaged them without concern for cover. The four 'brothers' attacked without fear or hesitation as they blasted through, both the shields and geth. Going alongside a wall, when a sniper failed to hit anyone it saw. It wasn't the sniper's fault, but the rocket trooper that alerted the team.

Liara moved up and glowed blue just like Wrex and a blue orb like the devices appeared but the two mechs were pulled in and caught in a gravity field flying around it. The team concentrated on them and destroyed the helpless machines easily. Now the team found themselves in a walkway with two more troopers waiting for them. Tali used her special geth scanner to determine if there was any other hidden geth. "Two Shock troopers right there and a Destroyer at the other end of the walkway."

Araniik motioned to Liara to lift one of the geth into the air. With that one out of the way, Sigma Squad rushed out of cover and shot down the further one. After felling it, they moved to cover using the columns to their left. They were waiting for the Destroyer to appear and when it passed them they jumped it, pinning it to the ground and ripped off both arms. Bev pulled the rifle he picked up and shot it point blank into the flash light and his brothers threw it up into the air. They were moving without much fuss, and Sigma Squad was waiting for something to go horribly wrong; they were right. A Geth Dropship appeared and started to drop off shock troops. Garrus shouted, "Get those defense turrets online or we won't be moving on!" The first one was simply activated with the push of a button from the holo display. Garrus added, "There should be two more we could use."

Aran then shouted, "Prudii, go!" Prudii had the least amount of gear and was the fastest of his brothers, even if they weren't wearing any of their gear. Most of the team was next to the first turret controls behind an outcropping.

Prudii ran to the next turret and move behind it for cover. As he tried to activate it, the system was lock. "Need a slicer! Bev, Tali, someone!"

Bev looked to Tali, "I don't know anything about you galaxy's tech yet. Go, we'll cover you." Bev stood up and fired at the geth. Everyone was opening fire on the geth as soon as they landed, some even being destroyed before they could fully unfold. She ran as fast as she could to the turret. One of the geth noticed her and began to fire at her. Before the shots hit her, Prudii moved in the way, taking the fire himself. He was unfazed as he shot it down. If Prudii had ever been considered a machine then this was the closest he has ever been. Prudii was using his body as a shield for her as she worked on hacking the system.

It didn't take long for Tali to activate the turret's systems. "The turret is online!"

"My turn, again." Prudii moved back to cover next to Tali as he waited for his shields to recharge. With fully charged shields, Prudii ran to the last turret closest to the dropship. He was hit by a few shots but he didn't notice. Hiding behind the turret, he pressed the button that he saw Garrus pushed on the first one. "All turrets online! Targeting clankers!" Everyone was shooting down geth after geth until the dropship pulled back, but it was too late. The dropship was still being targeted by the turrets until the ship exploded. With the ship gone they were able to mop up the rest of the geth.

After the fighting was finished, Tali went over to Prudii, "Thank you for protecting me while I hacked the turret. I didn't think you would risk your life for me like that."

"_Buir_, Araniik and Jedi have taught me that it is not always worth dying just for your orders, instead dying for what one believes in. I believe…that everyone else's life is more important than mine, so I fight so that they may live." Other than quarian dedication to the Migrant Fleet, Tali has never seen another being, besides Shepard, who was willing to die defending complete strangers. "_Vode_ wouldn't want to hear me say that though."

"_Buir_, _Vode_?" Her translator was unable to understand the alien language.

Prudii explained, "Mandalorian; _Buir_ means mother, it's what we called our drill sergeant sometimes, and _vode_ means brothers."

Rang was with the others as he waved Prudii over, "Hey _vod_, are you coming or am I going to win our game?"

Tali was lost again, "What game is he talking about?"

Prudii calmly answered her, "Sometimes, Rang like to compete against us and see who had the most kills on a mission. Araniik usually entertains him. Bev does too, rarely though. Before coming here, we thought we were going to die, so I gave him my count at the time. I'm still counting." Tali was at odds that anyone would have games about killing, but then again they had just come from a place enticed in war. Prudii waved back, then looked back at Tali, "Are you staying with the _kyr'adyc_?" as he looked down at one of the shot up geth.

"Right, let keep moving."

"Say Bev, I think Prudii is actually in _kar'taylir_ _darasuum_…" Before anything more could be said, Prudii fired a warning shot that singed alongside Rang's helmet. "OK, shutting up, but you know you just proved me right and…" Prudii only misses on purpose or when something messed with his aim; and nothing was hindering him. Prudii was tightening his grip on the pistol again, but lightened up after Rang motioned he was zipping his lip.

* * *

**Mandalorian Translation:** Udesii(oo-DAY-see)- Calm down

Di'kut(DEE-koot)- idiot

vod- mate, comrade, sister, brother(in this context)

Fierfek- Huttese slang word for 'hex' or 'curse'. Commonly accepted by non speakers as 'poision. Adopted by clone commandos as a curse word.

kyr'adyc(keer-AH-deesh)- deceased

kar'taylir darasuum(kat-tay-LEER da-RAH-soom)- love


	3. A new beginning…

**A/N: **Last part of the chapter that started all of this…

* * *

Beviin stopped at an exposed panel. Aran noticed and was curious as to what he was thinking, "_Me'ven_?"

"Prudii hand me an empty clip." Prudii carefully tossed a used clip, as it floated to Bev in the low gravity. Bev was examining some exposed wires, "Unless we're going to find Tiabanna Gas here; which I doubt, all of our weapons will be just for show eventually. So I'm looking for something else to use as a medium. Here…that blue stuff from before."

Tali saw what Bev was talking about. "Element Zero…It's what we used in our ships, weapons, the mass relays and is also connected to Biotic powers."

"Yeah well we might find another use for it…" Bev attached the wiring directly into the clip. He did a few things then pulled out his rifle and put the clip in. "If this works, we're back in business gentlemen. Otherwise…" Bev was taking point when they reached another exposed walkway again. Bev could see two krogans waiting for some action. He didn't want to disappoint them so as soon as he got out of cover he began to open fire. His crazy idea had actually worked and it was doing more damaged then it had ever done before. The second warlord was charging him but it didn't matter now that Sigma Squad knew they could recharge their clips. Sigma Squad almost immediately switched to the DC-17m blaster config and riddled the brute with shots. A Geth Destroyer was also charging at the team but the Biotic users, Wrex and Liara, blasted it with a powerful Biotic Throw.

It took them by surprise but, a Juggernaut had just appeared from around the corner. Tali hacked its IFF systems and it turned to futilely fight four rocket turrets and seven geth. The hacked Juggernaut gave Prudii openings to easily dispatch the rocket turrets. He used his sniper rifle and Bev assisted with his assault rifle. They destroyed the rocket turrets first letting the Juggernaut keep the other geth distracted.

After the turrets were destroyed the teamed moved up. Shepard shouted orders, "Wrex, Garrus, take two of the clones and clear out the elevator way."

Aran agreed to the plan, "Bev and I will go there. Prudii keep Rang alive."

"Hey I can take care of myself here!"

The new four man squad left one battlefield to engage in another. Tali had been keeping the Juggernaut on their side until the other geth were destroyed. Liara used a Singularity field to draw two stubborn geth out of hiding. Since the beginning of the fighting, the Juggernaut had destroyed three other geth. Prudii still had his sniper rifle and spotted one of the last geth and popped its head off. The last one tried to shot at the young quarian but Prudii stepped in front of her, again taking the shots. Rang shot down the last one. With the fall of the last trooper, Prudii moved Tali aside so he could finish the Juggernaut with his blades. It made no attempt to defend itself as Prudii began to stab the large mech. Its light flickered, and the body slumped as the Juggernaut was destroyed before the systems could return to normal.

Aran and Bev were leading the group with Wrex and Garrus close behind. They were expecting an elevator to bring more geth to them but instead, krogan warriors came out of hiding. They were about to fire until Araniik shouted at them. "Hey, you guys prefer hand-to-hand, right? Let's go!" Aran had placed his rifle onto his leg and Bev drew out one of his force pikes and entered a ready stance. The two krogan happily obliged, charging the two clones head on. Vhonte Tervho had trained her children well. Aran had caused the krogan that charged him to lose his balance, flying into the air. Aran then followed, jumping onto the back and stabbing it repeatedly through the mask. Beviin didn't let his opponent fly, instead stabbing him repeatedly in the chest but with no noticeable results. The krogan tried to get closer but was pushed back further each time. Bev didn't make the decisive blow until the krogan found there was no chance of victory. Beviin pinned the krogan down to the floor and jabbed his pike through the krogan's head.

"Impressive." Wrex smirked after witnessing that display of combat prowess. A krogan Battlemaster entered the scene now. "I've got this one boys." Wrex moved passed them and shouted, "Come on! Let go, Battlemaster vs. Battlemaster! No guns! Just Biotics and our fists!" The Battlemaster was more than happy to accept Wrex's challenge. They both shot Biotic Push as each other and dodged the other's attack. Wrex created a barrier for himself and charged the Battlemaster as he charged Wrex. They were now fist to fist, pounding at each other. Wrex took every punch that came at him, as did the Battlemaster. It seemed like an even match, until Wrex was able to make a decisive blow. He gave a quick and hard jab at one of the Battlemaster's primary airways, chocking him for the few seconds that left him vulnerable. He then created a Biotic punch that broke his helmet and Wrex tossed his corpse into the void.

Without warning, two krogan warlords came down the walkway firing their shotguns. Garrus was tired of waiting and popped both head with his sniper rifle. "Are we done with all the bravado? We need to regroup with the others before they decide to leave us."

Meeting back with the four of them, Shepard asked, "So, any trouble down there?"

"We had a little krogan infestation…Nothing we couldn't handle, right fellas?" Garrus looked back at the three with him.

In unison the three warriors just said, "No problem."

They moved forward until they reached a dead end. Garrus pointed out a hatch, "There! An emergency hatch. We should be able to get inside through there."

* * *

Back in an atmosphere filled area, everyone but the commandos and Tali removed their headgear. Sigma Squad depressurized their suits breathing 'new' recycled air. Prudii noticed the young quarian wasn't removing her helmet like the others. He wanted to ask politely when Rang also noticed. "So, helmet stuck or something there?"

Prudii was pretty close to snapping his neck when she answered, "No, my people's immune systems have weakened greatly since our exile from our worlds but I think we can discuss that later."

Without warning, Prudii punched Rang hard on his arm. He kept the conversation between the two of them, "Make her upset again and I'll hurt you, got it?"

"So you do like her, huh?" Prudii didn't respond and just punched him again in the exact same spot.

Aran noticed their conversation, "Sigma, quit _jurkadir vode_, there are things that need killing."

When they got to the first stair way towards a fountain, Sigma Squad took cover using the stairs. Prudii made the switch on his DC rife to sniper. He spotted and indicated where the hostiles were; four total, two on the left, two on the right. Garrus pulled out his sniper rifle along with Aran and Shepard. They each lined up a target so that none of them were shooting the same geth. When everyone was ready Shepard quietly did a countdown. "On three; one, two, three." In unison all four snipers went off and for each sniper a geth fell. "Clear!"

Everyone moved up to the next stair way pass the fountain. This time, Prudii pulled down his electrobinocular attachment because all of the debris, fire and garden stuff were not helping. He set it to look for electromagnetic interference and sure enough he found them. Same set up as before, but this time they had walls with them. Like last time, Prudii signaled what they were up against. Rang came up, "OK, it looks like it's my turn to shine." Rang changed his DC to the anti-armor configuration. This time Beviin was the one to switch out to it too. The others weren't sure what to make of this new weapon they had pulled out. Prudii pointed the locations of the targets and stepped back. The two rushed out to take cover behind a nearby rock. The geth started firing, but Araniik and Prudii stopped everyone else for joining. With a laugh behind his voice and a big grin on his face, if one could see under the helmet, Rang shouted, "Popping fire!" Prudii watched the whole thing through the electrobinocular as the two anti-armor rounds hit the barriers and blew the geth to pieces. "Off to the top floor; gardening, electronics and one maniacal maniac."

With the all clear, Shepard led everyone towards the top. "Williams, Wrex let's go! Everyone else, take cover and watch our backs in case the geth decide to bring in reinforcements."

As the three of them ran up the last stairs, Saren was finishing with a holo display and jumped off the ledge. They were too late to shot him but there was no sound of crashing or landing. Everyone watched as Saren rose back up, pistol in hand and tossing a tech mine. The team was able to dodge it and moved to cover. Shepard and Saren begin to exchange words and while they did that, Prudii was lining up his scope with Saren's head. Before he could pull the trigger, Tali grabbed his shoulder motioning him to have faith in Shepard. Prudii eased his finger away from the trigger but keep the scope on him. As Prudii watched, Saren began to lose his resolve. Shepard then does the unthinkable; he stood up and shouted at Saren, "It's not over yet. You can still redeem yourself!"

Without warning, Saren said, "Goodbye, Shepard. Thank you." Saren moved his pistol to his lower jaw pointing in an angle and pulling the trigger. The turian blew out his own head and fell through glass, landing in an enclosed garden space.

The team gathered as Shepard activated his omni-tool and uploaded the data. "Vigil's data file worked. I've got control of all systems."

Williams then said, "Quick! Open the station's arms. Maybe the fleet can take Sovereign down before he regains control of the station!"

Tali spoke up, "See if you can open a communications channel."

There was a distress call coming from one of the ships in combat outside, "…the Destiny Ascension. Main drives offline. Kinetic barriers down forty percent. The Council is on board. I repeat, the Council is on board."

Now a human voice can be heard. "Normandy to the Citadel. Normandy to the Citadel. Please tell me that's you, Commander."

Shepard answered, "I'm here, Joker."

Joker noted, "We caught that distress call, Commander. I'm sitting here in the Andura sector with the entire Arcturus fleet. We can save the Ascension. Just unlock the relays around the Citadel and we'll send the cavalry in!"

"You'd sacrifice human lives to save the Council? What have they ever done for your kind?" asked Wrex disdainfully.

Garrus opposed with a passionately, "This is bigger than humanity. Sovereign's a threat to every organic species in the galaxy!"

Wrex rebutted, "That's why you can't throw away reinforcements trying to save the Council. Hold them back until the Citadel arms open up and the human fleet can go after Sovereign."

The pilot got back on the comm., "What's the order, Commander! Come in now to save the Ascension or hold back?"

Shepard made his choices, "Opening the relays now, Joker. We need to save the Ascension – no matter what the cost!"

With disdain, Wrex said, "I hope the Council appreciates this."

Everyone tried to take a peek at the dead turian below them when Shepard looked at Wrex, "Make sure he's dead." Wrex was the first one to jump down into the small garden enclosure followed by Liara.

As the krogan walked to the corpse lying on the floor, he drew his pistol out and made a clean shot through the head. Liara radioed to Shepard, "He's dead." Suddenly it felt like the entire station was having an earthquake as red sparks jumped around. All of the energy moved towards Saren's corpse where it proceeded to spaz out. The body was lifted and glowed with a sinister red light, until a blast was emitted from the body. Wrex was thrown to the wall and Liara was knocked down to the ground. Rang, Beviin, Araniik, Williams and Garrus were able to move away from the platform before it broke. Before the platform tipped, Prudii grabbed Tali's arm and tossed her toward the other before it collapsed and became an unscalable incline where both he and Shepard rolled down. The deceased body was standing and what looked like was in pain, if he was still alive. The body was changing, growing and shedding until a red core for a heart and a basic skeletal structure made from the same material the husks were made from. Aran was giving orders to the others now, "Commandos, prepare to give it hell!"

Prudii shouted at them, "Get out of here! The four of us will deal with this thing! Remember: don't risk what is not necessary!" Prudii quoted Araniik after one of the mission where he took a blaster bolt in the leg just to save Prudii.

With a nod, Aran understood. "C'mon, we'll only get in their way."

Rang was against this, "What, so we do nothing as we watch that thing tear our _vod_ up?"

Aran turned to Rang, "No, we look for survivors and help when asked. _Tayli'bac_?"

Rang switched his HUD to scan for life signs. "Got one." Rang pointed above one of the balconies. "If we get to him now, he might live." The three commandos attached grappling hook launchers to the bottom of their DC-17 and fired fibercord grappling hooks. Secured, Rang asked the other to join them, "None of us know any anatomy other than a human's, so we need help." The six of them climbed up to aid the injured security officer.

Back in the garden area, the resurrected Saren had another voice to it when it spoke, "I am Sovereign! And this station is MINE!" The thing was hopping around quickly, but the team was able to take a few shots at it. When it finally stopped, a beam of red light targeted the krogan as it then shot a small burst. On the ground, it was crawling on all four limbs before it began hooping again. Prudii's DC-17 blaster was tearing through the shield like knife to butter. Liara created a Singularity field in the middle of the garden where the body jumped right into it. It was caught and couldn't attack or defend itself. Everyone unloaded at it until it gained motor control again. Now they know that Biotics could leave this thing vulnerable for a time.

Suddenly the thing jumped to a wall and its shields were back to full strength. Tired of it hopping, Prudii exchanged his DC for his bowcaster. The clip was full of quarrels and he just needed to see the effect it would have against it. Waiting for it to stop on a wall again, Prudii fired the first quarrel into the left hand. When it tried to jump, it was held back as the hand was pinned to the wall. Prudii continued to pin the other limbs as soon as they stopped moving. Everyone continued to evade its laser targeting system as Prudii began shooting at the head. It had broken free of the first quarrel and started to remove the other ones. Wrex was ready as he blasted it with a Biotic Push and shotgun to the chest. Shepard's assault rifle continued to aim at the head and Liara was just shooting it. With a precision shot from Prudii, a quarrel went between a pair of ribs and ruptured the red orb as it jumped.

When the orb discharged, the body, now lifeless again, crashed onto the floor. Without warning the body disintegrated, leaving only ashes. From the window, the team watched as the giant ship, Sovereign, lost control of itself and detached from the tower. With that moment of vulnerability all of the ship started to open fire until it finally blew to pieces. Unfortunately some of the debris was heading straight towards them. Shepard turned and yelled at the team, "Go!" before the hunk crashed through. Soon after the other team members that didn't fight were looking through the debris field looking to find the others.

* * *

**Minutes later…**

Rang had detected something near the garden section where he and Bev blew up some geth. A human C-Sec officer was also helping when they moved some of the ship parts out of the way. The C-Sec officer shouted, "Captain Anderson! We've found them! They're in here." He tended to the wounded Liara as the three Sigma Squad members continued to remove debris.

Then a dark-skinned human, looking similar to Mace Windu but in a military uniform, entered. "Take it easy…it's over. You're safe now. Where's the commander? Where's Shepard?" The beaten up krogan couldn't even look him in the eye as he shook his head looking at the ground. He turned towards where most of the larger wreckage hit.

Aran didn't like the look of this as they couldn't find their brother either. "Where's Prudii?" Both Liara and Wrex's face said what Sigma Squad feared. Garrus helped Wrex up on his feet and Ashley assisted T'Soni. Tali tried to help the mourning Sigma Squad, but there was nothing she could do but give her condolences. As they were beginning to leave the area, Bev and Anderson saw movement. Then there was a loud bang as parts were moved. Shepard had appeared and joy filled most faces.

Then the clicking sound of metal against metal, and from the shadows Prudii appeared, using his sniper rifle as a crutch. One of the first people to rush him was Rang. After he released him from his hug he yelled at his brother, "Don't you ever give me a scare like that again. Do you hear me?" He nodded, then Rang hugged him again and said, "Glad you're safe _vod_."

The other members of Sigma Squad also joined in on the group hug. Prudii returned to sentiment, though he was also trying to hide his pain. Prudii calmly told them, "Glad to see you guys too." When they backed off Prudii turned towards Tali. "Sorry about scaring you like that. Are you alright?"

Tali had to smile, "Yes, thanks in large part to you. What are you four planning on doing now?"

The four clones looked at one another than Araniik said, "Well this galaxy could use our skills and until we find a way home, we'll need people to teach us about everything…after all we are just _adiike._ Besides, right now, other than ourselves, there's nothing holding us back."

"Now this is worth using some bacta." Rang removed the bacta pack from his arm and placed it on the floor. Then he removed the armor around Prudii's injured leg. From the bacta pack he pulled out a needle and took some of the blue liquid from the pack. "This might sting but you should be used to it." He jabbed the needle into his leg fast and pushed it in. Just as fast as it went in, Rang pulled the syringe out. "OK, call me in an hour if you go numb around your leg…" Prudii gave him a playful slap to the helmet as the four of them laughed. Rang put the armor back on and patted him off. Prudii placed his DC weapon on his other hip and was walking with a bit of a limb, mostly from the needle. Rang looked back at Aran, "So boss, think we'll ever find a way back? Do we even want to go back?"

For once in his life, Araniik didn't have any real idea as to what to do. Their _buir_ always said if they were ever given the chance to leave the GAR after the war was over, they should. But as far as they knew, the war was still going on. "Let's just make the most of what we have here. We already said our goodbyes to Dagger, his crew and Dag; other than the Kaminoans, our other brothers and Vhonte we had nothing else in that galaxy."

For some reason that answer satisfied them. They watched as Prudii finally started opening to someone that didn't share their face or knew their 'father'. New rules and many new enemies waited over the horizon, Sigma Squad was going to have a very interesting new life in this world of Mass Effect.

* * *

**Bonus Chapter**

This is just something I wanted to add for fun; will not be fully apart of the story.

* * *

Hours after killing Saren and destroying Sovereign, places like Flux began to open again. Wrex and the Sigma boys went on a drinking contest. When they got there Wrex told the bartender, "We want the first few rounds on the house for saving all your asses. The later stuff will go to Shepard's tabs."

The small round suited being nodded and sent down five glasses. "Prudii, since it takes more drinks to waste you, you're in charge." The four commandos took off their helmets and attached them to their belts. After their fifth glass the boys from Sigma started to sing some drinking songs they learned from the Cuy'val Dar.

Rang and Araniik sang the more mercenary song: Buy'ce gal, buy'ce tal, Vebor'ad ures aliit, Mhi draar baat'i meg'parjii'se, Kote lo'shebs'ul narit. _'A pint of ale, a pint of blood, Buys men without a name, We never care who wins the war, So you can keep your fame.'_

Beviin and Prudii were singing the more Mandalorian song: Naasad'guur mhi, Naasad'guur mhi, Naasad'guur mhi, Mhi n'ulu, Mhi Mando'ade, Kandosii'ade, Teh Manda'yaim, Mando'ade. _'No one likes us, No one likes us, No one likes us, We don't care. We are Mandos, The elite boys, Mandoboys, From Mandalore.'_

They got so drunk they might have sung their songs in Basic but none of them cared. They continued to sing as they eventually passed out leaving only Wrex and Prudii awake. With one last drink Prudii called it in and with Wrex's help got his vode to a hotel for some long deserved R&R.

* * *

**Mandalorian Translation:** Me'ven(mey-VAYN)- What

jurkadir(JOOR-kad-EER)- messing around

vod(vohd)- comrade, sister, brother(in this context)

Most plural forms add and -e, pronounced as "ay"

Tayli'bac?(TIE-lee-BAHK)- Understand?(often very aggressive)

adiik(AH-deek)- child aged 3 to 13

buir(boo-EER)- mother or father(this case mother)


	4. Funeral of a hero, The rise of guardians

**A/N: **At Macho1234 asking I'm continuing the story of Sigma Squad. This begins soon after Saren's death. Sorry drinking scene will have to happen later. Same format as before _Thoughts, "Mando'a"_

Fixed the grammar.

* * *

The commandos of Sigma Squad were always quick learners. In two week they learned the rough galactic history, including the Reapers, and adapted to the new tech. With Tali's help, Beviin had adapted their armors with this galaxy's standard while keeping all of the Katarn's original specs. Araniik liked that the new suit add-ons, including a radar that detected enemies - but he didn't want to rely on it, so he configured it to pop-up on his HUD when there were more than eight enemies in an area. Bev even converted the squad's DC-15s and DC-17m blaster and sniper configurations to utilize mass accelerators and adapted some of the clips for the blaster and sniper to heat-sinks. Beviin was so used to the new tech that he had created a second omni-tool to better facilitate him when he sliced systems. Rang only like the little device for the ability to toss an unlimited supply of tech mines at enemies and the ability to perform noninvasive medical scans and apply medi-gel, which could have saved thousands of clones.

Rang was getting use to medi-gel instead of bacta. The only thing Rang didn't like about it, from a medical perspective, was that medi-gels, when compared to bacta, only did the job half way. It only stimulated rapid healing by sealing the wounds, whereas bacta worked with the body to heal faster. But Rang had to deal with it until he found a way to synthesis more bacta or something close to it. Prudii was more interested in the histories of the species in the galaxy, since it was a lot easier to remember with only a handful of names unlike their galaxy where millions of species existed. Prudii had found that the krogans were in many ways similar to the Mandalorians; adaptive, tough, enduring and warriors, something the krogan have lost in the pass few centuries after being infected with the genophage. Prudii felt an unusual connection to the quarian people though. Most, if not their entire adult life was spent sealed in a suit. He had always isolated himself when he was in his armor but they have no choice in the matter. Recalling now, Prudii had thought he saw a tear run down Tali's face behind her mask when they first removed their helmets here, now he was almost certain he did.

Garrus had told them all they needed to know about galactic law which was more or less the same until they heard about A.I.s being illegal and restrictions on weapons of mass destruction, mainly orbital bombardment. It would have made their lives easier, or non-existent, if it was like that in their galaxy. They learned all they need to know about the underside of the galaxy from Wrex. They heard that the Shadow Broker was not one to trifle with but they shouldn't be on bad terms with either, like a Hutt dealing in information. Sigma Squad went to Sirta Foundation to 'fix' a problem the Kaminoans left. Rang had blood samples ready for testing, he just didn't have the lab or credits to do it himself. It cost a fortune, but with Wrex's loan, Sirta found the gene site and 'cured' them. Sigma didn't care where it was, they just wanted it returned to normal. Araniik presented it as a rare non-transmittable genetic decay that ages their bodies faster than it should - not that anyone would be able to see the genetic tailoring the Kaminoans had flawlessly interwoven into their genes. It took Sirta Foundation a few months but they found a viable way of undoing the accelerated growth without causing any side effects.

But before that, the Citadel Council wanted to know whether to consider them humans or not. Sigma never felt just human but they had limited exposure beforehand. So when asked, Araniik answered, "Just call us, Mandalorians." Due to declaring themselves independent from humans or any other race, they did not have a political voice on the Citadel that wanted a seat on the Council. This also opened the possibility for the Council to ask if they wanted to join the ranks of the Spectres. No rules could hold them back, they could keep the peace how they saw fit and access to almost anything they want; what more could they ask for? The four of them needed a few moments to discuss it.

They were using their suit's personal communication channels. "Boss, I think we should do it. I mean, it's the 'go wherever we want, do whatever we want and get away with it' badge. Plus we need a steady supply of credits somewhere."

Beviin wasn't as certain as Rang, "Araniik, are we sure there won't be any repercussions for joining. What if we do find a way back home, what then? Do we abandon one duty to carry another?"

Prudii demonstrated his lack of concern for either argument when he said, "Why not? We were made to help the Jedi keep peace by their rules. If we join we're just following their rules instead. If we find a way back there's nothing saying we can't leave. But from Urdnot's stories, sound like we could make more credits from the private sector."

Araniik unmuted his helmet and stepped forward to answer the Council, "If it's alright with you, we need a few days to mull about it. We'll message you when we have an answer." The Council members, especially the turian Councilor Valern, were not pleased with the answer but it was the best answer they were going to get. Especially since they were their own 'nation'. A few days after their meeting, the SSV Normandy was attacked by an unknown vessel that took the lives of twenty-two crew members; Commander Shepard was among those lost.

* * *

The funeral was held days after Shepard's death. Many were unable to hide their feelings for the loss of the Commander. Wrex was leaning against a wall closest to the surviving Normandy crew. Garrus had placed himself between his friends from C-Sec and Chief Williams. Liara and Dr. Chakwas were next to Joker with his crutches on his chair. Even though Sigma had battled only one mission with the man, they felt a sense of respect that they needed to pay towards him. Araniik, Beviin and Rang stood in the back behind the last row. Prudii was sitting in the back row next to Tali as she laid her head against his arm, crying for the loss of Shepard. Prudii had lost brothers during the Clone Wars but he had never seen people in such woe over the loss of one man. Prudii was trying to help her but all he could do was let her lay her head against him as her muted helmet let her cry without other, besides Sigma Squad, knowing. All four commandos gave the Commander a silent prayer: _Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la_.

During the service, Araniik noticed a little droid-looking thing next to a woman near the front wearing an elaborate blue gown. He asked Beviin to hack the little bot and send the data to his HUD. Even from that distance, Beviin sliced it with ease and with no one the wiser.

After the service was finished, Tali and Prudii talked away from the crowd. Prudii was never good at socializing. "Are you, OK?"

"I'll live but…I just can't believe Shepard didn't make it."

"Maybe if my _vode_ and I were with you, things might have been different." Prudii was not sure if that was comforting or not but at least he was trying.

"Thanks but…I'll find a way to handle it. It's nice to know I have someone I can talk to." Prudii activated his new omni-tool and sent her data. Tali looked at the message, "What's this?"

"Personal helmet comm. channel. If you ever want to talk to someone." For the first time in his life, Prudii was nervous, and he had stared death in the face more times than most of his brothers.

"I'm sure to call you from time to time from the Fleet. Thank you Prudii, for everything."

"We…could…travel with you…back to your Fleet." Prudii's fingers were clenching.

Tali finally regained her smile, "I'd like that very much, Prudii."

While Prudii and Tali were talking, Araniik had a chat with Wrex. "…so what do you think, Wrex? Should we join?"

Wrex paused for a moment to think, "Personally, I'd do it. Being a Spectre means you have no rules holding you back but you do have to report to the Council from time to time and it tends to be hard to blend in with a status like that hanging over your head. I'm not saying you couldn't do merc work, just that most wouldn't hire you knowingly, if you took the offer."

Beviin was displeased about the lack of a body at the funeral. "They should have taken the time to look for his remains at least."

Rang didn't mind and was keeping it between the two of them, "Hey it's a better funeral then we'll ever get. Besides I doubt a body in armor could survive atmospheric reentry now, don't you agree?" For Mandalorians, they normally only give a marked gave to Mandalore when a body is recoverably, unless he specified otherwise. Otherwise mass graves and cremations were common for dead Mandalorians with only a possession, usually armor even if it's only smaller parts, are kept as memorials.

"I don't know…_verda_ die on the field of battle, not in the void of space."

"Tell that the thousands of vode we've lost in space."

"At least they were fighting something. The reports say Shepard and his crew were abandoning ship after a _jehavey'ir_."

Prudii and Tali had walked over to where Araniik was. "Aran. Could we go with Tali to her people? T-t-to insure she gets back safely."

"Alright Prudii, but first…" Aran pulled out one of his pistol and shot the little robot. Seven C-Sec officers moved in and Araniik pulled out his second pistol and aimed at two different officers. Prudii was pulling the head fringes of a turian officer with one of his gauntlet blades at his exposed throat. Rang and Beviin had both of their DC-17m and 15s trained on the last four. The four of them moved into these positions within three seconds of Aran being surrounded.

A turian with large light blue markings on his face appeared wearing fancy clothing with more officers in tow. "What seems to be the problem here?"

The woman with the now destroyed machine, walked over, "This 'brute' destroyed my camera and all of my footage today!" Araniik didn't say a word as his helmet replayed one of the comments the woman had recorded on the little floating camera, "The alien-lover whose death marks the end of a short lived relation between humanity and the Citadel races. Note to self: replace 'alien-lover' with Shepard or Commander later for political reasons."

Araniik stopped the recording so he could speak, "I may not have known Shepard as long as some here, but I just think it wasn't the best way to represent the man, especial at his funeral. I've always hated _tay'haai'e_ personally."

"I agree." Not sure what that word was. The Executor signaled the officers to stand down, and Araniik did the same. "Escort Miss. Al-Jilani out of here." As a pair of C-Sec officers removed her, she kept saying how it was going against her right of freedom of the press. "I wish they could fix that. Couldn't you have found a better way to destroy the data?"

"Figured I'd make a better point by destroying the little droid. I'm sure she or her boss have insurances for it. Araniik, Sigma Squad." He saluted.

"Executor Pallin. Head of C-Sec." Pallin saluted right back. "So you and your boys are the mysterious Sigma Squad. Thanks for keeping one mess from starting. From the reports I've read, Shepard could have become a better Spectre then Saren ever was. You humans should be proud."

"Technically we listed ourselves as Mandalorians, not humans."

"I heard about that. Good luck surviving without any political leeway on your side." With that bit, Araniik had finally decided what to with the Council's offer.

* * *

Before leaving to the Migrant Fleet, Araniik had a private meeting with the Citadel Council. "I've made my decision. We're joining your Spectres, under conditions."

Councilor Valern still viewed him as a human. "You don't make demands of the Council! You either join or don't! There's no exception!"

The salarian Councilor Marnath simply said, "Let's at least hear what he has to say first before deciding anything. We do owe them our lives after all."

Aran started to explain, "We'll join but I don't want any fancy ceremony, none of your political bullshit and no public acknowledgment of us being Spectres. We'll do missions for you and report from time to time but Sigma Squad will work our way. All we need is a ship and we're set."

The asari Councilor Tevos asked, "Why do you wish to be so secretive about being Spectres?"

Aran simply said, "Because we still want to work as mercenaries in-between your 'missions' and it'll be hard if everyone knows we work for you. All I ask is that only the four of you know so, for the first time in our lives, we can live the way we want. If you're so concerned, we'll even limit our activities to the Terminus Systems unless one of your missions or contracts says otherwise. I'm not doing this for myself, this is my _vode_."

The newest Councilor, the human Anderson, saw the reasoning behind it even without knowing the true history. "If we did keep quiet about them we could always use them as a trump card for desperate situations, and if we have another Spectre or STG unit that need back up they could always say that detected a distress beacon or something."

The asari nodded to the others and they both nodded back. The asari spoke, "Off the record, we recognize Sigma Squad as Spectres and will call upon your team in times of need. We will have a ship for you in public Dock 724."

Araniik bowed, "Thank you, Councilors." With that he left them to reunite with Tali and the rest of Sigma Squad.

"So, how did it go? Do we have to answer to anyone?" Rang couldn't help but mess around about Aran meeting the Council alone.

Aran laughed, "I'll explain later, Rang. For now, let's get to **our** ship."

Beviin and the rest of Sigma were confused, "I'm sorry sir, but did you say, 'our ship'?"

Aran just said, "I 'negotiated' a way for us to get a ship. Now I believe we have someone to return to her fleet."

Along the way, Prudii and Tali were talking together, getting to know each other better. "…and that's the Migrant Fleet and the quarian people. So what about…what did Aran call it, Mandalorian?"

Prudii explained, "_Mando'ade_. Our _buir_, or father, was a man named Jango Fett. He was a Mandalorian and he was the one who recruited our drill sergeants. They say he was the best bounty hunter ever."

"Was?"

Prudii looked down, "A Jedi by the name of Mace Windu sliced his head off at the beginning of our war."

Tali was confused, "But, you told me you worked with these Jedi and that they defend peace. How can he justify killing that man, your father?"

"I never said I saw him as a father, just our genetic donor. Some of the other vode may have seen it like that, but not me. I only had my _buir_, mother, Vhonte Tervho. At the time of his death, he was working with the Separatist and attacked Windu first."

Tali was a bit lost. "Your language is a bit confusing, so some words like mother and father use the same word?"

Prudii tried to explain as he knew, "They usually have the same meaning, just depends on the circumstance; like vod means brother, sister or comrade but one could add jagyc for male or dalyc for female. For me my vode are the others from Sigma Squad and all the other clones, I'm just closer to these guys. Staabi, I was about to tell you about the Mandalorian people. To be honest, many of the krogan concepts, before they lost their way, are similar. We are both verda, warriors, searching for worthy opponents to fight. The only real difference is that the krogan are a species, so too were the first Mandalorians. But now, it more of a culture that accepts those who are willing to follow our laws and rules. We live by tenets called the Six Actions that cannot be forsaken; Wear the armor, Speak _Mando'a_, Defend yourself and your family, Raise your children as Mandalorians, Contribute to the clan's welfare and, When called upon by _Mand'alor_, we rally to his cause. Thinking about it now, Araniik could be considered our Mandalore."

Tali then asked, "Who, or what, is a Mandalore?"

Prudii continued, "It's the name we give to our leader. He or she is usually the strongest and most worth amongst us. When a Mandalore dies, a successor will take on the mantel and lead their way."

The whole time the two of them were talking, Araniik was privately telling Beviin and Rang the news. "_…Pirusti, vaabir bintar vorer_?"

"_Ni o'r, _Rang?"

"_Val jate'shya verborir mhi_!"

When Sigma Squad and Tali arrived to the ship, they found it was a small re-purposed turian frigate that was supposed to have been scrapped months ago. It was being refitted with new armaments and armor plating. A dock worker with a datapad walked towards the group, "Name?" He looked at them, "The name of the ship. What are you going to name her?"

Before the others could say it, Araniik took the datapad, "We'll call her Tervho, after our teacher." He signed it and handed it back to the turian.

"Ok, the ship is yours now. She's about twenty years old just to tell you right now. Personally, I'm amazed she even survived the geth attack. Girl's got lot of spirit in the right places. Good luck out there with your ship."

Inside their new ship, Sigma Squad inspected their new home. They were greeted by the ships VI program. "Welcome new crew. Please identify and indicate ship's new name." The voice was turian.

"Araniik, Commanding officer and navigations."

"Beviin, XO, pilot and communications."

"Rang, medical chief and engineer."

Prudii, gunner."

"The ships new name is the Tervho."

The VI then processed all the new data. "Reconfiguring. Welcome crew of the Tervho."

Rang found one of their soon to-be favorite places in the ship; the sparring area for hand-to-hand combat practice. The _Tervho_ also had gunner positions, living quarters, navigation and a small kitchen. Of the team, Beviin was the best pilot but he wanted to check on the ships drive core so Aran took the helm. Aran was configuring the new system to a style that he and Beviin used in the old simulators. Other than the five of them, the ship was dead inside with no crew. "Well it looks like one of the first things we'll have to do is find a new crew but let's get Tali back to her fleet first." No one in Sigma Squad liked the fact that hyperdrives don't exist and they relied on the Mass Relay system to travel from cluster to cluster. Rang was checking their medical supplies while Prudii was going over the weapon systems. Tali was entering the Migrant Fleet's current coordinates at the galaxy map. With everything green, Aran started the ship's engines and the docking clams released. Approaching the large Mass Relay, Araniik entered the mass of the Tervho and flew alongside it. Now he knew what to expect, as the ship was enveloped by eezo and blasted to the next location.

* * *

**A/N:** The salarian Council member's name is just something off the top of my head. The other 2 names can be found on the Mass Wiki only the asari is identified. I inferred that the other name is the turian from the in-game reference about humans need to defend their colonies and blah blah. More Mando'a was used and much more later on if I can understand it correctly.

**Mandalorian Translation:** Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la.- Not gone, merely marching far away. (Tribute to a dead comrade.)

verda(VAIR-dah)- warriors (using an archaic plural)

jehavey'ir(jeh-HAHR-vay'eer)- ambush

tay'haai(TAY-hai)- reporter

Plurals are formed by adding -e. The "e" is always pronounced as "ay".

Staabi(STAH-bee)- Right

Pirusti, vaabi binta vore?(peer-OO-stee VAH-bee BEEN-ta VAW-reh)- Well, do both accept?

Ni o'r((nee ohr)- I'm in

Val jate'shya verbori fmhi!(vahl JAH-tay-SHEE-ah VAIR-bor-EE mee)- They better pay us!


	5. A date with the Fleet

**A/N: **OK everyone who reads this, here is my next piece. And a concern that Malcho1234 brought up; No TIM does not want them to work with Shepard, even if he found out they were Spectres he would rather acquire their 'alien' tech to advance humanity, and they will have many violent run ins with Cerberus later. Also Aran will openly refuse requests from the Council, won't go into it or it will mess with my mind. Thank you Malcho1234 for the link to download Mass Effect: Ascension I believe that this is a relatively accurate portrait of the quarian captain. Also pardon quarian names, I am terrible at creating names.

Some more things to clear up, a few things about the last chapter; 6-8 days after the Normandy's destroyed the funeral is held on the Citadel, 1-2 days after that Araniik has the secret meeting with the Council, the Migrant Fleet is about 2 days away from the Citadel. Bev plans to change the VIs voice later and they will be looking for a crew to man the ship. Remember reviews, comments and intelligent criticizms are welcomed, hate letters will be incinerated with companion cubes. You don't have to wait for me to remind you to do so cause I won't every chapter, but I'm not stopping you. So on with the story…

* * *

As the Tervho made her approach on the Flotilla, the commandos of Sigma Squad were expecting something different. The fleet was mostly composed of old rundown ships that looked like they had never seen a dry dock. The ships were redesigned and heavily modified; most modifications were just keeping them flight worthy.

On their approached, a woman from one of the ships contacted them. "Turian vessel, you are approaching the Migrant Fleet. State your business."

Tali was right behind Aran, ready for this kind of welcoming. "This is Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, requesting permission to dock with the Nemma." Prudii and Rang were right behind her.

"Verify."

Tali then recited, "After time adrift among open stars, along tides of light and through shoals of dust, I will return to where I began."

The trafficker answered, "Permission granted. Welcome home, Tali'Zorah."

Tali then requested, "We'd like a security and quarantine team to meet us. Our ship is not clean."

"Understood. Approach exterior docking cradle five."

Even at a time like this, Rang could find something to complain about, "They seem open. So does everyone have that password or is it different for each ship?"

Tali answered, "No, we're just very protective of the Flotilla. Each quarian has his or her own phrase we memorize before leaving for Pilgrimage." Prudii was tempted to smack him but he restrained himself for the time being.

With the ship attached to the dock arm, Sigma Squad left Rang to watch the ship while Beviin, Araniik and Prudii entered the quarian ship with Tali. Aran didn't want to get on the bad side with a race that has a fleet this size, heavily armed or not. After decontamination, a team of quarians, all males, greeted the four of them. The commandos figured they were male due to the lack of breasts and their masks were more elongated compared to Tali's. The captain of the group spoke, "Greetings Tail'Zorah, it is an honor to meet you. My name is Fota'Sala vas Nemma, captain of the Nemma."

Tali bowed her head just slightly, "Greetings, captain. I have a gift to offer to you."

Fota looked past Tali at her entourage and jokingly said, "I hope it isn't these beings…"

Araniik stepped forward and the three clones saluted, "No sir, Sigma Squad. RC-2473, Araniik."

"RC-2472, Beviin."

"RC-2433, Prudii."

Aran added, "We have a fourth member back on the ship. Otherwise, we're just her to make sure Tali gets back home safely."

The captain saluted back, "Thank you for your concern for one of our own. I wouldn't have expected this from most, especial from humans."

Aran corrected him, "On the Citadel records, we are not listed as humans. But back to the matter at hand, Tali you said something about a gift?" Sigma Squad focused mainly on the primary entries and a few secondary entries from the codex.

Tali explained to her friends, "It is a tradition when a quarian comes of age they leave the Flotilla in search of something of value to our people." She activated her omni-tool, "Here captain, I think we should have the Fleet's best technicians start working on this." He examined the data as Tali stated. "Unaltered geth data files."

Sigma Squad could see his shock, "This will truly help bring our people closer to reclaiming the homeworld. We knew the daughter of Rael'Zorah would bring great hope to us. I humble accept this gift and you as crew of the Nemma. Welcome Tali'Zorah vas Nemma nar Rayya."

"Thank you captain." Tali was getting nervous as she began playing with her fingers and asked, "If I may captain…I wish to speak with some of the Admiralty Board."

"I'm sure your father and Shala'Raan would like to talk with you as well. I will arrange a meeting."

As Tali's new captain and his security team left, Tali turned to her three heavily armored friends, "There's another reason why I want to talk to my father and Aunty Raan. I figured that since you needed a crew for your new ship that maybe my father or Shala could find a quarian or two willing to help you. Not that I wouldn't like to go myself…it's just that…I just got back and was accepted to a new crew and…"

Prudii stopped her, "Understand… aliit, family, comes first." Normally no one could ever tell how Prudii was feeling, either from his body language or his voice, but here he was having a hard time hiding his sadness for Tali leaving.

* * *

Waiting for the two admirals, Prudii spotted a shuttle docking in one of the Nemma's interior docks. Led by Tali, they approach the dock to be met halfway by a pair of quarians with armed escorts, some with shotguns others with assault rifles, all of them well trained. News of the three commandos spread fast around the Flotilla, with almost everyone hearing about them. Even without seeing their full faces, most of the guards were nervous when they first sighted the intimidating looking commandos. Tali made the introductions, "Prudii, Beviin, Araniik, this is Admiral Shala'Raan vas Tonbay and Admiral…"

She was cut off by the visibly unarmed male quarian, "Rael'Zorah vas Kira. I'm sorry to hear of Commander Shepard death, Tali. I'm sure he was an extraordinary human."

Tali wasn't able to look anyone in the eyes when she replied, "Thank you, father." Prudii wanted to somehow comfort her but with her father around he didn't want to do anything that looked like an advance on her. If he learned anything social from Vhonte, it's was to never mess with a child, good intentions or not, when one or both parents were around.

"So I heard you had brought back geth data for our engineers to decipher. This will bring us closer to reclaiming the homeworld. But, that is not why you soldiers are here for is it?" Bev, Prudii and Aran weren't too impressed with Rael's fathering methods.

Aran was hesitant but that just delayed him for about a second. "We just recently acquired a ship of our own and she's in need of a crew."

"And you want some of our people to fill her seats?" It was the woman identified as Shala'Raan.

"With all due respect admirals, we don't need a ship full, we only want volunteers. But if you need compensation for whomever, I'm sure we could work something out." Aran was looking around the ship, "I'm sure with Bev and Rang's assistance, we could fix one of these ships up to Republic standards."

"We need to discuss this in private. Excuse us." The two admirals turned around with most of the guards watching the three Sigma Squad members.

Beviin used the private channels to argue with his superior while staying still, "Sir, what are you doing? Look at what we'd have to work on. I mean half of the ships look ready to crash onto Raxus Prime or Ord Mantell!"

The two of them kept their body language and helmets silent the whole time, "Then we'll just have to fix that, won't we. If you let them help while fixing it, I'm sure they could pick up the techniques to use on other ships."

Prudii has never been conflicted about anything in his life before. Vhonte taught him that hesitation meant death in combat but even off the battlefield he had never second guessed anything. He's so trained with that mentality, it once took Vhonte and two other Cuy'val Dar to stop him from killing four of his brothers during a training exercise. The only reason they stopped him really was because Vhonte had exceeded the number of casualties the Kaminoans would allow her. Prudii wanted to be closer to Tali but he had to be professional for the time being. The only time he had personal desires that might interfere with the mission, besides all the times he wanted to shoot Rang in the kneecaps.

The admirals stepped forward again and Shala spoke, "We have come to an arrangement; If you can repair one of our ships enough to your 'Republic standard', then we will discuss about letting one of our people go with you." Shala activated her omni-tool, "The Idenna, she is in need of some repairs."

Beviin activated his omni-tools and gave the ship a good look over. After about minute of inspection, he nodded to Aran, "Given time we can do…something. I wouldn't call it Republic standard but it'll be as close as I can get it." Beviin only seen had the exterior and interior of the Nemma but he noticed something different about the Idenna, "This doesn't look like most of the other ship. Is it some sort of prototype quarian design or something?"

"No, it's not." Rael continued, "It's a decommissioned batarian ship. That was, until we got her working again. She's relatively new, to the Fleet and we've made some changes to the original design. As one can expect, a ship thirty years past her prime should be scraped but we find ways of extending ships like that for a few more decades. The captain, Ysin'Mal vas Idenna, will be waiting to see you."

* * *

With permission, and decontamination, the Vhonte was docked in one of the Migrant Fleet's interior docks. It was a quick shuttle flight but the commandos could feel the age of the shuttle as it traveled to the Idenna. With the shuttle secured within the Idenna, the commandos were greeted by its captain and more security forces. Unlike before, this captain seemed…unusual. "Ah, welcome Sigma Squad to the Idenna. I am Captain Ysin'Mal vas Idenna. You can just call me Captain Mal, if you want." Unlike some of the other quarians Sigma Squad has encountered, the captain seemed more open and different than most. "Please follow me, I'll show you where you four can bunk for the time being. Marines, dismissed."

"Well word seems to travel fast here. I wonder how fast express is." Even with the joke Rang was sizing up the quarian marines as they left the hangar. During this time both Rang and Bev were scanning both the quarians and the ship to get an understanding about them, mentally and biochemically.

"Ha ha ha ha, I sometimes ask myself the very same question. I would ask you to relinquish your weapons but I think it would be safer to just leave them with you, for the time being. But here on my ship, all I want from the four of you is to just not cause too much trouble." Even though he was not as physically built compared to them, Captain Mal seemed rather calm even without security following them, openly.

They reached a rather isolated area of the ship close to the port side engine. Captain Mal turned around, "Sorry for the remote accommodations or if this is smaller than what you might be used to, but this is the best we have on such short notice. Don't get the wrong idea or anything, I've only heard good thing about the four of you from Tali'Zorah, I'm just worried about the rest of my crew. You understand right, each of you are intimidating in your own right. I'm sure that everyone will feel comfortable within a week's time. And when that happens, I'll personally see to it that you get better quarters. Remember, this ship is our home and we are all family, we're all just very…protective of the fleet."

Even though they have had shore leave on Coruscant and missions on various worlds, the boys of Sigma Squad understood. Looking at the quarian people the four clones were reminded of their old home on the Atonement. The room they were given was about the size the Republic Army would normally have for a Jedi General or an officer. "Understandable Captain Mal, our armor is meant to intimidate." Aran looked back into the small room before turning back to the captain, "Don't we have to go through more decon before we work?"

Mal shock his head, "You already went through one to get on board the Nemma, which should be enough. Before you get started with helping us, I want to introduce you to Idenna's engineer team. If you would like, I can have some of my trusted security members guard your personal effect, should you decide to leave anything here." They declined, preferring to carry the weight for now.

Arriving at the ship's drive core, they found several quarians going in and out of the area with one very prominent female working on a command console. "Come on…come on…no no, don't do this! No don't, you bosh'tet! …AHHH!" As she pounded her fists through the holo display. "Damn it, not again. Alright, let's try this one more time."

"Rasen." She turned around suddenly to see them. The captain made the introductions, "Rasen'Doran, these are your newest set of hands, Sigma Squad; Aran, Bev, Prudii and Rang. Aran, this is the Idenna's chief engineer Rasen'Doran vas Idenna."

"So, these are the four that brought Rael's daughter back home. Sorry if you heard any of that. I'm trying to make this conversion algorithm more efficient but something keeps causing the program itself to suddenly crash every time I do a test run."

Bev walked over to the console, "Let me take a look at it…" He created a parallel runtime as he tinkered with the program. He worked on it for about three minutes before stepping back, "Try it now. It might need some more adjustment later on but for the time being it should be what you were looking for."

Rasen took a look though Bev's changes, "Hmmm…you have the synchronization sequence loop around that, and…I would never have thought about bypassing the power calculations for the mass distortion here…" she turned towards Beviin, "I think I'm going to enjoy working with you guys."

* * *

For the next month, Beviin, Rasen and Rang, along with the help of several quarians and the rest of Sigma Squad, fixed up the Idenna; after depleting a planet or three of its resources. Bev was just finishing a connection of some power conduits. "_Bal…ni…ru ani._ With proper maintenance, that should last for a good twenty years or so." With a towel in hand, he was cleaning the grease off his armor, not the first time Bev's cleaned grease off and it won't be the last. He knew his brothers were there the whole time, "Aran, Prudii, did you guys bolster the bulkhead weak spots like I asked?"

"_An ru morut'yc._ Rang?" Prudii said in his monotone attitude. He was content with just working away but he had Tali's voice to comfort him for time to time, via helmet channels.

"I was just about to contact him," Bev placed a hand on the side of his helmet, "Rang, are you still with us or did you manage to lose your line?" It's uncommon for Beviin to joke around like that but it was more then what Prudii ever does and only outside of combat.

"The line's fine 'mom' but I ain't testing it. All the new bulkheads are secured and welded tight; you could say they came with the ship how well these guys are with a torch." As Rang was just about to enter the airlock, he noticed a ship coming in. "Hey Bev, did any of the quarians say anything about another ship docking today?"

Bev was never one to forget easily but he does tend to mute people while he works, "_Naasade jorhaa'iru bic ibac ni partayli, tion'jo_?"

Rang was trying to stay out of view from the incoming vessel, "'Cause I spy with my little visor a ship on approach." He was hoping his helmet's medical scans could penetrate the ship's hull but to no avail. "Hey, can you have my feed work through your holo emitter…and do you have Rasen near yea'?" _Like I need to ask that last one._

"Give me a few seconds." Bev tinkered with it until he thought it would work. Beviin then waved over the engineer, "Rasen. We need you for a bit." With her nearby Bev contacted Rang, "Alright Rang, you're on speaker."

Rang started explaining, "There's a ship inbound Rasen, and something doesn't feel right here. It's a bit smaller than our ship and the marks on the sides are in quarianese, or whatever you call your language. Bev, now would be a good time to show her."

With the holo emitter in place on the floor, Bev used his omni-tool and then the holo emitter projected everything Rang's visor was seeing. Rasen immediately knew the ship, "That's the Cyniad…but, she went missing after that traitor Golo vas Nedas wanted to trade with them." In Khelish, the quarian language, nedas means nowhere, but since the quarians had adapted to life in ships, it was a great insult and the commandos could hear the disgust towards Golo in her voice.

"Yeah and if this doesn't smell like a trap/set up, then I'm the uncle of a Wookiee."

"Sometimes smells like one yourself." Prudii rarely made jokes but they were usually at Rang…and funny.

"Oh ha ha…I forgot to laugh funny man."

Aran interrupted, "_Luubid_! Doran, get as many of the crew into a secured location…this isn't going to end well."

Rasen was a bit of a stubborn one, even amongst the quarians, "No way! This is our ship and we'll defend our home with our lives!" Rasen thought back to resent events onboard, "The entire Conclave and Admiralty Board members just had a meeting with some humans onboard, do you think that has anything to do with this?"

Aran tried to reason with her, "I don't know, but this is could become a war zone soon. I'm asking you to help move all noncombatants out of the way. We want them to strike first; if they're in quarian suits, like I think they might be wearing, then your people might get the wrong idea at a very bad time if we attack first." Aran and the rest of Sigma Squad were trained to 'hit'em hard and hit'em first'. None of Sigma Squad wanted to let the attackers strike first but if they didn't, many more lives might be put into unnecessary danger. "Rang, get back here ASAP!" Rang quickly worked his way back to the rest of Sigma Squad.

* * *

With all of Sigma Squad together again, they were checking their weapons and how well they have adapted to their new system. "Rang, how's your LJ? Is it functioning properly?"

"She's fine Bev. With the mods we made to her, she'll do fine. I'm just worried about the AA attachments never being used again. At least the LJ can be used in a ship without blowing a hole in her. Hey Prudii, your bowcaster having any trouble adjusting?"

"_Naasad. Liniba mar'eyi evaar'la _quarrels_. Werdla tech borari pirusti._ Aran. ACP Repeaters, _tsikala_?"

"They're both fine, now that Bev's has that thermal clip tech attached to them. Check both of your DCs commandos." The pistols were in working order and now we're capable of firing an average of twenty-two shots instead of the original seven shot limit the energy cells restricted them to. They converted sniper and blaster attachment clips to act like this galaxy's thermal clips. But unlike the rest of the galaxy, Sigma Squad removed then when they overheated, just like how the DC-17m were originally designed. The commandos kept the clip for later use, after it had cooled down. Bev and Rang only changed about half of the clips they had and planned to save the others for special occasions. Bev and Rang had yet to find anything to replace anti-armor round with, but they figured the galaxy would develop something in time. Beviin's pikes just need an electrical charge to bring them back to speed if they ever lose any juice, otherwise they could still be useful as a quarterstaff. Now all Sigma Squad could do was wait in the bilge until the sounds of battle called them.

* * *

**A/N: **Also the shot count for the pistols is if you just fire continuously without stopping. Still learning Mando'a syntax so bear with me as sometimes they'll speak it sometime they won't. Hope my techno talk sounds accurate. Anyone who want to give advice for later technical discussions.

**Mandalorian Translation: **Bal…ni…ru ani(bahl nee roo AH-nee)- And…I'm…finished.

An ru morut'yc.(ahn roo moh-ROO-teesh)- All secured.

Naasade()- Nobody

Naasade jorhaa'iru bic ibac ni partayli, tion'jor?(nah-SAH-day joh-har-EE-roo beek ee-BAK nee par-TAT-lee Tee-ON-jo)- Nobody told about it that I remember, why?

Luubid!(loo-BEED)- Enough!

Naasad(NAHS-ahd)- None, not any

Liniba mar'eyir evaar'la 'quarrels'.(lee-NEE-ba mah-AY-ee ee-VAR-la)- Need to find new quarrels.

Werdla 'tech' borari pirusti.(WAIRD-lah boh-RAH-ree peer-OO-stee) Stealth tech works well.

tsikala(zee-KAH-lah)- prepared, ready


	6. Battle of the Ideena

**A/N: **OK, I screwed up. I left this piece out, or the original post of this got deleted accidentally.(Don't even remember what I said up here even.) Anyway its back now so the Battle of the Ideena...

* * *

Rasen returned to the waiting clones, who had just finished their weapons checks, "Guys, I just talked with my friend from communications. We lost all possible contact with the rest of the Fleet as soon as the Cyniad docked. The captain has ordered all civilians to the upper decks and all security forces to the trading deck. If you want to help, you should move before the trouble starts."

Beviin turned to her, "Wait, what about you and your team, what will you do?"

"I already got them to the upper decks, I came back to tell you what's happening."

"With all due respect Doran, you're not exactly set for combat." Aran didn't like the sound of any of this, but from the tour around the ship, he figured that if Mal was using the trading deck as a line of defense, then the intruders hadn't gotten past the loading bay.

"I may be an engineer, but that doesn't mean I don't know how to handle a weapon." Aran could feel the stink eye Rasen was giving him.

Aran tossed her one of his DC-15s to her, "Then here. Be careful, she might have more of a kick then what you're used to." He was right, Aran has fire a couple of different models from this galaxy and most of them didn't have that strong kickback they were trained to compensate for. "Alright team, _Oya_!"

* * *

While on the move, Rasen radioed Captain Mal, "Captain, Sigma Squad and I are going to join you in the trading deck soon."

"Rasen, what are you doing? I ordered all civilians to the upper decks!" Like any quarian captain, Mal was just trying to keep everyone he could safe.

"Sigma Squad didn't like the look of the Cyniad when she docked, so they hid in the bilge. We'll be there in a few minutes."

Mal knew there was no point in arguing against Rasen, "Alright, we'll be ready for you, but just be warned; the fighting might already have started when you all arrive. See you when you get here."

The commandos had their DC-17m and stopped at every door. It was an old habit, but those kinds of habits tended to be the thing that meant the difference between staying alive and being filled with holes. They were proceeding in standard commando formation; Aran and Bev were leading with Rasen sandwiched between the four of them with Prudii and Rang bringing up the rear. They entered through doors one by one, ensuring none of the hostiles had passed Captain Mal or any of the defenders. With no quarians around the ship felt dead as the five of them proceeded without trouble.

Eventually, they reached the closed door that led to the trading deck. Everyone was prepared as they could hear the beginning of the battle on the other side of the doors. Aran looked at the rest of the team and everyone nodded to him. He opened the door and they charged into the fray. They could see one of the crates was still lifted in the air with a pair of armored humanoids dead, with two more teams of four rushing, in tossing grenades and firing.

Rasen ran to the cover Mal was using, "Sorry we're late, captain."

"No time for pleasantries, Rasen. We have to defend our home."

As Rasen fired the DC-15s for the first time, the force from the weapon had thrown her off balance, almost knocking her down. After a few more shots she was getting a feel for the weapon and was in full swing.

Seeing the configuration of the room and how all of the crates were arranged Rang immediately switched to his LJ-50 without Aran having to suggest it. The LJ-50 didn't need a direct hit to hurt them nor would cover stop it. He saw one of them trying to go around them and fired ahead of him. No one, outside of Sigma Squad, was prepared for what happened next. As the energy built up and before the invader could do anything, the energy burst out blasting him out of cover giving his brothers the opportunity to gun him down. Unfortunately, Rang and the team weren't fast enough as a quarian who was trying to stop him was shot by the other humanoids. Despite the invaders' advance armor and weapons, Sigma Squad's gear was better.

Sigma Squad had noticed the two humans fighting alongside the quarians but they didn't have any armor and were using quarian weaponry. Even if they were talking to them, Sigma Squad was focused on the fight and each other. They kept the DC-17m's original sixty shot per clip count so they didn't have to worry about adjusting to a new count. During their time on the quarian vessel, Bev had also increased the team's shield strength to about twice what they were normally capable of. With the team's first kill, they spread out, Prudii was alone to the left, Rang was taking the right side of the room, Aran was out in front with the others behind him, and Bev was with Rasen and Captain Mal. With Rang's LJ still in play, none of the invaders knew any way of countering it and Rang was going to conserve each shot.

The battle wasn't going to well, as the highly trained enemies were more than a match for the quarians and their outdated weapons. Still, Sigma Squad would occasionally step in the way of the shots to protect a quarian from time to time. Bev even did that for Mal and Rasen. Regrettably though, they weren't always able to get to them in time to save them, as was the case when two quarians were hit by a grenade. The human male was glowing blue as he launched a Biotic blast that launched two of the hostiles to the wall. The commandos and the human female were able to gun one down but the other one was fast enough to take cover. Before they could do anything, the man that used Biotics was blasted by a Biotic blast that sent him to a wall, rendering him unconscious. Judging from the force that launched him, Rang figured the man was still alive, he was going to wake up with a nasty headache later but he was still alive. Even with the commandos, the fight was one sided, in the enemy's favor and quarians falling left and right. Aran and the rest of Sigma Squad knew what was coming. It was only a matter of time when Mal finally shouted, "Fall back! Fall back!" With everyone moving back to the door, Sigma Squad was laying down cover fire, letting the others retreat before they followed suit. Bev had locked the door down to give everyone time to catch a breather.

Aran wanted to know when they got past the door and to give them a 'present', "Rang, set a charge next to the door, not too big. We don't want to rupture the ship's hull." Rang pulled out a small breach charge from his pack. It's not enough to kill them but it'll be a nasty surprise when they enter. Prudii and Bev were arranging makeshift cover. "I'm sorry about not being able to do much else, captain."

Mal shock his head, "No, I'm not. You and your team have saved a number of our lives, including my own."

Aran then asked, "Who are these guys? Their too well armed and trained to be the run-of-the-mill pirates, or mercenaries."

Mal could only tell him what the humans have told him, "I'm told they are Cerberus and…"

Aran stopped him, "We've read about them, a human centric group, not part of the Alliance, willing to do anything to advance humanity."

He looked down, "Just…we will avenge the death of the Cyniad's crew and the marines today. Alright marines, Sigma Squad has given us some extra time. Let's move up those stairs and prepare to reengage!"

They watched as the female human ran up the stairs first and went in a different direction than the rest of the quarians, "Well she's a lot of help." As Rang checked his LJ and aimed at the door.

Rasen was next to Beviin, thanking him in an unusual way, "I didn't need protection, but thanks just the same."

"Couldn't let a fellow engineer go down like that." Bev wasn't even looking at her as he had his DC steady at the door.

During this down time, Prudii had managed to make contact with Tali, "We have a problem. Humans have attacked the Idenna. Cerberus or something."

"Cerberus! Be careful Prudii, when I was with Shepard, we ran into Cerberus a couple of times…and they were ruthless. Please Prudii, keep the Idenna's crew safe. I'll get the Admiralty to send reinforcements…"

Prudii cut her off, "No. Small strike force, with advance armaments and armor. Reinforcements will only complicate things. Promise, we'll eliminate them before they threaten the rest of your fleet."

"Thank you, Prudii. But, I'll warn the Fleet about the threat just the same. I hope things end well for you all." Before she disconnected, she whispered, "Please…stay alive, Prudii…"

The commandos all saw that one of the armored beings had only three fingers. The build was too big for a salarian, it didn't have the distinguished disk around its neck or feet of a turian, and it was definitely not a krogan, so it had to be a quarian. They have to assume it was that Golo traitor Rasen was talking about earlier. They figured if they informed the quarians, it would only get them emotionally upset and killed faster. They planned to tell, after all of the combat was done.

Rang's breach charge had did what they wanted, disoriented the Cerberus operatives as they entered the area, but that didn't slow them down much. They were pinned down, but the quarians were no match against them. They were forced to go up the stairs and into the cubicle maze. After getting into the maze, Sigma Squad was ready and eager to engage.

Prudii was flashing back to when Beviin first installed the cloaking tech in his omni-tool. "This tech will make you visibly invisible. It won't hide your thermals or anything like that, but it should let you get past most organic opponents with no problem. While invisible, your shields won't recharge, so better be careful when and where you use it. It can last for about six seconds and you need to let it recharge for about six seconds, but your cloak will also strengthen any attack you do, physical or weapon-based." Even though Delta Squad was infamous in the Republic, amongst their clone brothers, Sigma Squad was famous for their close-quarters abilities and ambush tactics.

Everyone had moved deeper within the maze, but Prudii was still near the entrance. As the Cerberus team entered, something was amiss. The quarian traitor was falling back and two of the operatives left the battle. That didn't matter, as there were still four agents that needed eliminating. Just like back on that jungle planet, Prudii had turned off all of his light and hid in the darkest corner with the best view. As they entered one at a time, Prudii followed quietly behind the last one. As they began to separate, Prudii continued to follow his target from a distance. After separating far enough, Prudii cloaked again and charged at him. Even with the clanking of his boots against the floor, Prudii was quiet and fast. He stabbed the agent through his unprotected neck after turning around. With his other hand, he squeezed the agent's wrist, breaking a number of his bones until the hand released its grip on the gun. As the man choked on his own blood, Prudii could hear the operative's helmet communication, "Jonas, what's going on? What was that sound? Jonas, respond!" Prudii then snapped the poor fool's neck with one hand and kicked him onto the floor. "Damn it, I'm coming over there hang on!" the woman ended the communications.

Prudii dragged the body into one of the closed off cubicles, burying the body under creates and cleaning the blood trail. He contacted his vode, "Bev, Rang. Contact coming to this location soon. Ambush."

* * *

The first mistake she made was going alone. She was vigilant, until she found human blood on the floor. Unexpectedly, her private channel buzz and then someone spoke, "Wow, even under that armor you look good."

She began to scan the area with her modified rifle, "Who's this? How did you get this channel?"

The voice continued, "Me? I'm a no body. On the upside, you wouldn't have to worry 'bout 'meeting the folks', cause I got none. And does it matter how I got it? I think we should go to the Horse Head Nebula, I hear there's a great secret station we could visit there."

"How do you know about it?" She was beginning to panic, just what the voice wanted.

"So the data is accurate. Too bad I didn't get the coordinate from your comrade."

"Where is he? What did you do to him?" Now her emotions were beginning to get in the way of her training and judgment.

"Oh I didn't do anything to him. Neither did the quarians, so don't worry about that. What you should worry about is the guy with the meter long electric stick…" before she could turn around a sharp poking pain hit her back then a sudden stream of electricity ran through her, as she let out a scream only she would hear as her armor's systems were all fried. After falling to the ground, a force was on her back and pinning her down to the ground.

* * *

Rang walked out of one of the cubicles with his LJ-50 in hand. He put the EMP bayonet just above her helmet's visor, "Too bad things never worked out for us but hey, easy come easy go." He fired the weapon and moved back two steps as the energy exploded. All that was visible from the visor was blood and possible brain matter. "Hey vode, I think this brings a new meaning to the phrase, _Ori'buyce, kih'kovid_."

All Bev and Prudii could do was shake their heads at Rang, _No. _Aran called out to the three of them, "Sigma, the enemy is falling back. Regroup with rest of us so we can take them out before they return to the docks. They must have found whatever they wanted."

Back with Aran, Rasen, Captain Mal and the other quarians they all were chasing the last two operative. They had moved down the stairs by the time Rang, Bev and Prudii regrouped with the others when Aran asked, "Commandos, body count."

Bev started, "Two were downed before we entered combat, One taken out down stairs…"

Prudii told what he saw, "Two left the battle, traitor retreated, stabbed one…"

Rang finished, "And one brain blown to bits. I kind of wish we could have met differently but whatever."

"So the two dead in one in the aisles I found accounts for your two missing combatants Prudii."

Luckily all of that was just between the four of them, as the group reached the stairs to find a distracted agent and a dead one. Several quarians and Sigma Squad opened fire on the distracted _di'kut_, killing him with assistance from someone downstairs. Before the commandos were about the clear the room, the person shouted, "It's me, Hendel!"

The quarian man known as Lemm shouted back, "Hendel! You're alive!"

With that the commandos, Rasen, Lemm, Captain Mal and four other quarians walk down the stairs, waiting for the man to appear. Looking at the dead bodies he asked, "Is that the last of them?"

The commandos were running the number through their head, _At least two more Cerberus operatives; a pilot, possibly the commander; and the traitor, are left to kill. _Without letting the other realize the true situation, Sigma Squad had already begun moving towards the Cyniad when they heard the clanking of footsteps right behind them.

Passing bay three, Prudii stopped as he saw a Cerberus operative in full armor holding the human woman's side while she hung her arm around his neck. The Cerberus man was in no way a threat, but that didn't stop Sigma from pointing their weapons, all trained at the Cerberus man's head.

* * *

After the startling revelation that Cerberus planned to use the Cyniad to destroy the Idenna, Captain Mal, Idenna's security chief, Hendel, Bev and Rang were running to stop the bomb. Rasen, Prudii, Aran and the other quarians were ready to kill the man, if he did anything funny. At the Cyniad, the five of them looked for any sign of the keypads, when both Mal and Hendel found them. With a dramatic few seconds left, the bomb was deactivated and everything was fine now. Bev radioed to Aran who put the report on speaker, "All clear, sir. The bomb has successfully been deactivated."

With his blades, Prudii edged closer to the Cerberus man's jugular, "What do we do with him?"

"I say, we kill him here. Then we space his carcass to the nearest sun." Rasen couldn't help but look at Aran in disbelief at what he had just said, when he continued, "But he's not our prisoner. His fate, rest in the hands of the quarians. Though, I think our plan might be more humane."

* * *

Sigma Squad stayed out of the politics, as they helped Rasen and her team, fix all of the damage both the Idenna and Cyniad had suffered, due to Golo and Cerberus. After learning that, even with all of the debating, it was Captain Mal who would have the last say in all of this. Aran knew that Mal was going to send him to the Alliance, even before he had declared his decision. With all of the damage fixed in a week and nothing left for the commandos to do, they said their farewells to the friends they made among the quarian people.

Captain Mal was giving his final regards as they were preparing to board a shuttle, "It has been an honor to have had you on board my ship, Sigma Squad. And thank you for all of your assistance, both with repairs and defending our home."

All members of Sigma Squad saluted to the captain, "The honor has been ours, sir. We hope your search for a new homeworld is a successful one, captain."

Mal saluted right back, "Thank you. I hope your journey fares as well, Aran. Keelah se'lai, my friends."

Rasen wasn't there to see them off because she didn't want to say goodbye to them at all, but now she was conflicted; should she stay with her family and home to find a new homeworld or join her newest and closest friends as they travel around the galaxy. Mal was next to her now. "I noticed you weren't there to see our friends' goodbye." She couldn't answer him and continued to work on some power couplings as Mal continued, "I hear they are looking for people to join their crew. It must be hard to fly a ship with only four people. I heard that the Admiralty Board plans to send someone with them but I thing that list can have another on it."

She finally turned to him, "But what about the Idenna and the Cyniad…I can't just leave now. I'm part of your crew and…and…"

"And I'm giving you permission to join them. I've seen your team, each of them are hard workers. Sure they are not as good as you individually but I think your stubbornness and techniques have left their marks."

All she could do was hug him as she teared up and said, "Thank you…half-brother."

He returned her affection and embraced her, "Mother would want to see you happy." Finished, he helped her up, "Now you need to hurry to the Nemma if you want to catch them before they leave."

* * *

On board the Nemma, Sigma Squad were met by Tali, Rael and Shala; along with half a dozen guards. "You kept your promise and we will keep ours." Rael stepped aside, "This is Tare'Nara vas Kira; he is one of the Kira's best navigational personnel she has. Treat him well."

Aran proudly said, "As if he was one of my brothers, admiral."

Tare saluted, "I am honored to work with such outstanding members that helped defend the Idenna. I look forward to working with all of you."

Aran saluted back, and then extended a hand out, "Welcome to the Tervho."

Everyone noticed a shuttle as it hurried into the docks. Then Rasen was running to get to where they were. She was exhausted as she was trying to catch her breath, "I…I…I want to join them as well admirals. I already…I already have permission from Captain Mal." Her suit was cancelling the noise of her huffing and puffing as she tried to stand.

"She already has permission from her captain, Rael; I see no harm in letting her go. Especially if they are willing to defend these two like they did for the Idenna." Shala'Raan said.

"Fine. You have permission from the admirals to join Sigma Squad's crew. Rasen'Doran, Tare'Nara. Keelah se'lai." With that Rael, Shala and the guard leave.

Tali turned back to the six of them, "Good luck out there with these guys."

Like always, Rang couldn't help but joke around, "Which group; us or these two?"

Tali let out a small chuckle and continued, "Both. Well this is goodbye again, I guess."

Prudii looked at her and said, "Re'turcye mhi. Maybe we'll meet again." Again, Prudii saw a tear in her eyes through her visor, even if one was not meant to see it. Without warning, he hugged her for about five seconds then started walking away with the others.

Normally, Rang might have said something, but this time he knew it was just best to let thing be instead. They all return to the Tervho and begin to leave. As Tali watched from one of the Nemma's observation decks, Prudii also looked back to the Nemma, as the Tervho jumps into FTL, faster-than-light, speeds toward the nearest Mass Relay.

* * *

As Grayson bartered with the Illusive Man for Kahlee Sanders' safety, Grayson had threatened to expose Cerberus and all of their dirty little secrets. Before the Illusive Man came to a decision, an image with four heavily armed and armored individuals popped up next to Grayson's screen. The Illusive Man knew much, but surprisingly he had nothing about these four. All the Illusive Man could do was ask, "What is this?"

"Extra leverage. If me keeping quiet isn't enough, then these four might be. I don't know who or what they are, but they were more proficient then any of your operatives that I've worked with and their technology is more advanced. Kill them for their tech or capture them for study, it's your call, but all I want from you is to stay away from Kahlee Sanders."

The Illusive Man gave a threatening whisper, "We will find you."

"Maybe. But that's not why I called. Kahlee Sanders: do we have a deal?"

After much debating, the Illusive Man finally nodded in acceptance of the deal. Grayson smiled on the screen then it suddenly turned static. Grayson was a smart man and there was no way of tracking him, for now. The Illusive Man now turned his attention to the image looking at them. The four man team was impressive looking and their weapons were truly alien. As he blew out smoke, a dark haired woman in black and white walked up behind him, "They look charming."

"I'll be sending the Angels to try and 'acquire' them." as he patted off his cigarette into an ash tray.

The woman looked shocked, "The Angels normally don't bring back live subjects."

"Exactly the point," As he released another cloud of smoke, "If they are as good as Grayson says they are, then we might be able to use them…willingly or otherwise. All that matters is that we can acquire and use their technology to advance humanity." As he pressed a few buttons on his chair's arm, various screens pop up segmenting the image into four different screens, focused on one of the mysterious armored beings.

* * *

**A/N: **I do remember what I originally commented down here(partly). Yes, for those who have read the book, I did add 2 Cerberus commandos just for Sigma Squad to kill. No I do not think that was an excessive amount of violence. In HK-47's opinion it wasn't enough. Moving on, sorry for this lost chapter for I don't know how long.

**Mandalorian Translation:** Oya!(OY-ah!)- literally mean 'Let's hunt!' but has many more meanings, always positive and triumphant

Ori'buyce, kih'kovid.(OH-ree-BOO-shay, KEE-koh-VEED)- All helmet, no head. Common term of derision for someone with an overdeveloped sense of authority.

di'kut(DEE-koot)- idiot


	7. New freedom and a new threat

With that mess with Cerberus taken care of, the Tervho has gained two new quarian crewmembers. Captain Mal let Sigma Squad take one set of armor and an assault rifle the Cerberus agents used. Before anyone could leave to their stations, Aran made an announcement to everyone, "Now that you are part of our crew, I need to establish our rules to you. Rasen, Tare, we live by something called the _Resol'nare_ or Six Actions. Their simple rules and you both should be used to some of them; one: wear the armor, Bev and I will help you create them later, two: speak _Mando'a_, we'll all teach you that, three: defend yourself and your family, four: raise your children as Mandalorians, five: contribute to the clan's welfare and six: rally to Mandalore's cause when called upon, you don't have to worry too much about the last one, just remember it. You two can continue your traditions as quarians but while you're with us, you'll also follow the _Resol'nare_."

Tare saluted, "Understood captain." Even through Tare was part of navigation, his father had him trained with the quarian marines and Tare took his training to heart.

"No problem, Aran." Having worked with them for a month, she was less formal with them, acting like an older sister to them sometimes.

Rang was looking through the ship's computer when he found something all of his brothers would want to hear, "Hey guys, Sirta Foundation sent us a message. They claim to have something for our uh…problem. I think I'll be the judge of that."

"Bev you heard Rang, set a course to the Citadel, we're about to get our shots vode." Aran was allowed to make jokes with his orders from time to time, he just never did so under fire.

Three days after they left the Migrant Fleet, they arrive at the Citadel and all members of Sigma Squad left the Tervho, leaving Rasen in charge of the ship until they returned. Also, because quarians aren't normally well accepted, Aran wasn't in the mood of deal with anyone accusing one of his crew for thievery. When they got to the lab, the Sirta representative was telling them how they had done everything within legal bounds to fix their 'disorder'. Rang was displeased about that, "Wait, so you did…clone organs to see the effects on them due to your 'fix' didn't you?" It felt odd for Rang to say that word, being a clone himself.

"Of course sir, otherwise we couldn't say we are the best when it comes to genetics. If you would like sir, I can also provide you with the data." Rang nodded and the representative handed Rang a datapad.

Rang ran through the data in his mind and used everything he learned about the medical field. After about two minutes of looking through it, he put his free hand on his helmet, "Personally I would have used lab rats to test the effect further but the numbers are accurate and you guys did use each of our samples individually…other than the testing concern, I believe this is the closest we'll get to what we want boss man." The Kaminoans kept all of the genetic data to themselves, never letting any of the clones, Cuy'val Dar or even Jango Fett see anything.

Aran had to think for a few second but if Rang said this was good then it was better than nothing. "Alright, we'll do it. I'll be the first."

The procedure took about twenty minutes but in the end, Aran didn't feel any different. "Alright _ik'aade, tion'ad projor_." After an hour, all members of Sigma Squad would age normally now. Unfortunately, the Cerberus hunters known as 'Angels' had just found Sigma Squad at the Sirta Foundation but they could not do anything with so many eyes watching.

The commandos were window shopping through the Citadel. After the third store, Sigma Squad noticed their unwelcomed company. Another time when their private comms were going help save their lives, "Sigma, do we have an estimate of how many hostiles are following us?"

Each of them was separated as they browsed through a weapon store, not showing any body language. "I counted at least four, sir. All of them have the same colors and symbol as the Cerberus guys that attacked the Idenna." Beviin was disappointed in the lack of melee weaponry, bayonet or otherwise.

"No. four front men. Three others further back as back up. Possibly more elsewhere." Prudii was examining an M-97 Viper sniper rifle.

"I knew you two should have killed that guy. Now he told his boss and we made it onto their enemy list. I think we should feel honored but what are we going to do with new groupies?" Rang was eyeing the recently developed ML-77 Missile Launcher and M-451 Firestorm.

"Same thing we do to any ghost, Rang. Take them out one by one." Aran had picked up an M-23 Katana and was getting a feel for the weapon. "We'll let them think they have use where they want us, but we'll do what we do best." And that was trapping and ambushing: lethal and nonlethal, at this point preferably lethal. "Bev, set your holo emitter. Rang, can you use that EMP bayonet in your hand without zapping yourself. Prudii, warm up your new favorite tech and Bev, adjust it to envelop others via physical contact."

* * *

With an unnoticeable ear piece, one of the Angels was following their targets. He whispered updates to his team, "Subjects are on the move again, continuing to follow." The four humans continued to inconspicuously follow the four armored beings.

"Hold on Hares, we need to catch up." The woman was trying to work her way through the crowded marketplace with her two associates. As they continued, they suddenly lost contact and sight of one of their operatives. "Wait! We just lost Markus." The woman didn't like this as she looked around for her missing agent. Unbeknownst to her, an invisible predator was hunting them within the crowd.

"Jennet, status report!" The man was trying to keep his voice down.

"We can't find Markus. Are all the targets in front of you guys?" Thinking one of them might be behind Markus' disappearing.

"Yeah, all four of them are walking towards the warehouse district." Hares had motioned his team to tighten formation.

"What the f-. I lost Brendan. What the hell is going on here?" Jennet was panicking now. She was one of many that joined Cerberus simply out of xenophobia, and being on the Citadel in the middle of the marketplace her mind was at a point of paranoia. "Damn it Hares, let's just grab 'em and go."

"We have to wait until they are out of people's sight. Don't freak out on me now, Jennet, remember you're an 'Angel' and we always get what the Illusive Man wants. Stick to the plan and we'll leave soon."

"Fine, but I better be getting…" She was silenced by an invisible force and yet no one saw her as she felt a blade pierce into her spinal column and being forced into one of the dark alleyways. Her assailant removed her weapons and revealed that they were invisible to the crowd as they decloaked in the dark shadows. It was one of the targets they were hunting and he had successfully taken out all three of them, without exposing himself or letting anyone know he was there. Before she lost consciousness, he took both hands and snapped her neck. After her death, he took her ear piece and started to listen in on the last four.

"Jennet…Jennet, answer me. Damn it!" He had broken his visual with his targets, when suddenly the dark orange and charred target was right next to him.

The target was right in front of him and they couldn't do anything to execute the plan. The target then asked him something, "Hey buddy, my suit's systems have been on the fritz recently, I think one of the stores caused it, but anyway, do you have the time?"

_He mustn't know about me then. Good we don't want them to catch on._ He checked his omni-tool, "It's 3:12 P.M. Pacific standard Earth time."

"Thanks pal," he extended his right hand out to him. Hares grabbed the hand but suddenly a pulse of energy went through his system, putting him into cardiac shock. Everyone noticed him as he started to spas on the floor when the orange armored fellow shouted, "Shit! OK, step back people, I'm a medic! Damn of a time to not have my working gear. Man's in cardiac arrest. Damn, I'm not losing another one!" Hares saw the round blue pulsing piece hidden in his right hand as he began to perform CPR. With each push from his hand, more electric energy was transferred into his body. The man continued that façade, until no medical method could save the man, "No, no, no! Damn it…I lost him…"

The red armored one with the skirt-looking thing pulled him up, "Come on, brother. There's nothing you can do anymore." The four of them walked away.

The agents hiding in the crowd whispered amongst themselves, "Shit man, we lost Hares, Jennet and her team what do we do now?"

"Pull yourself together, Pat. If we fail, the other Angels will kill us. Come on, we may be fewer in number, but we can still pull of this plan off." As the crowd slowly dispersed, so too did the three Cerberus agents as they continued their pursuit.

As they continued chasing their prey, Pat also disappeared, just like Jennet and her team. Now the Angels were getting desperate. Then the black armored mark disappeared suddenly and the others stopped. The red armored fellow and the blue one turned and walked towards them. They both called them out, "Hey." Simultaneously the two armored men put their right arm around the two Angels' neck and pulled them into their left fist when a blade entered their unprotected gut.

The red and black armored one whispered as he put his head next to the agent, "We knew for a while you were trailing us, Cerberus. Your seven bodies are a warning to your boss. The next group he sends better be ready for us." He moved back and talked normally, "Well thanks for the advice pal, I'll see you around." Pulling both his blade and fist back from the man, he walked over to the orange one. The blue one did the same thing and then just before he fell, the black one looked him in the eye as he walked past him.

With two more bodies collapsing in the markets, C-Sec moved in to check on the bodies. A salarian officer scanned the bodies and was shocked at the results, "Sir, they were both stabbed with a blade at least 5 centimeters in, but what's odd here is that their organs and blood vessels are ruptured with the stab wound as the epicenter."

The human looked around and saw the four commandos, "You four, hold it right there! Officers, take them in for questioning." The commandos complied as they were escorted by eight officers to C-Sec holding cells.

* * *

They were put into four separate cells and all of their weapons and armor were taken from them. Even without their gear, each one of them could have found a way to break out if Araniik hadn't ordered them not to do anything. They were wearing simple garb they had under their black under suits. It was almost an hour before someone entered Araniik's cell. The man was older looking and had white hair with a receding hair line. Judging from the man's calm demeanor, Araniik could tell he was fortunate enough not to have talked to Rang or Prudii yet. The man had a datapad in his hand as he looked over the data, "So, you and your friends are that Sigma Squad group huh? Well, you're going to have a hard time defending yourselves from at least six murder charges." Araniik acknowledged the man's presence as he just sat there on the bench. "Look, I'm trying to help you here. I can see the military training just by looking at you but if you don't give me something to work with, we're just going to go straight to the hearing."

Aran didn't look at the man as he just said, "I want my call."

"Alright, but I don't know who you'd call that can help." He led Aran to the nearby terminal.

Aran was able to contact the Citadel Council. Aran kept much of their conversation in private, "…in person, I'll discuss the details later. But we have confirmed that the same organization that attacked the quarian Migrant Fleet is also the same group that is chasing us; Cerberus."

Councilor Tevos agreed, "Yes, we will continue this talk later and in private." Aran moved out of the way so the asari could address the C-Sec captain. "Captain, release these men and return their equipment."

"Yes, but…"

Anderson stepped in, "Please, captain."

"Yes, sir…" The captain sent the order to the rest of his people. "You and your friends are free to go now and all of your gear should be given back to you before you leave. Just out of simple curiosity, why did they help you guys?"

"They owed us a favor."

* * *

The meeting took place at the salarian Councilor's secured office, where Councilor Velarn starting off asking Sigma Squad, "And you're certain that it was Cerberus?"

"Black-op humans that successfully infiltrated the Flotilla, had equipment more advance then the Alliance and had a squad trailing us in the middle of the Zakera Wards; from what we have read that sounds like Cerberus. If that isn't enough, then this should convince you…" Aran turned to Beviin as he tossed down the holo emitter and displayed the symbol from the operatives.

Marnath and Anderson confirmed that the symbol was indeed Cerberus. "…So, why are they interested in you?"

Bev stepped forward, "It's only speculations right now, but I believe that they are interested in our weapons and armor because it is not from this galaxy. Councilor Anderson, did the Cerberus prisoner ever arrive from the quarians."

"I don't recall any prisoner every being handed off to us." Anderson double checked looking through his omni-tool.

Rang just burst out pointing at Prudii and Araniik, "I knew you guys should have killed him! Now we have this crap to deal with."

Velarn commented, "If you let your status as Spectres become public, Cerberus wouldn't be so willing to attack you."

"No thanks, we can handle this ourselves, Councilor." The commandos can see the disgruntled look on Velarn's face.

As the commandos begin to leave, Councilor Anderson stopped them, "Wait. We have a batarian ambassador, Jath'Amon, and with any luck, can lead to peace between the batarian people and the Citadel. He'll need protection from any assassination attempt from batarian extremists."

"I don't think it would be best for us to do that." Aran explained, "Four mercs guarding a batarian diplomat for the Council wouldn't look too good for you now would it. Let's move commandos. Bev, call Doran and Tare, tell them we'll be back there soon."

* * *

At one of the Citadel's many night clubs, a group of humans were having a secret meeting using the music to keep their conversation between themselves. "That idiot Hares failed, I knew I should have gone."

The woman laughed at him, "If you led that mission Daniel, they would have spotted you sooner. No, we underestimated our prey. With luck we can 'transfer' them out of C-Sec's hands and into ours."

"Problem with that Beth, C-Sec released them." The older man with turian claw scare on his face said.

"When did that happen, Greg?"

"Just before we started this meeting. Don't ask me how they were able to evade murder charges for our fellows. They must have friends in high places or something. So, do we have a new plan yet?"

The woman talked again, "We wait for them to leave and after they move to the next location we can board them in an unexplored region or in the Terminus System." With the outline idea they all nodded in agreement and departed.

* * *

Returning to the Tervho the commandos were greeted by both of their quarian crew members. Rasen banters the four of them, "So it seems Cerberus has put you in their sight. What will you do now?"

"We continue to look for people to fill the Tervho's seats. Do either of you have any suggestions."

Tare didn't want to say anything but he built up the courage to say it anyway, "If…if we are going up against Cerberus, then we need the best of the best, which I figured you intended to find anyhow. So we should head to Omega."

Sigma Squad figured that Omega was a place but they couldn't help but think of the 'mutt' commando squad with the same name. Rasen disapproved of that idea, "Omega! Are you serious, Tare? That place is filled with nothing but thieves and brutes!"

Rang turned towards Aran, "Sounds like Tatooine, or more accurately Nar Shadaa, boss man. Perfect place to hide the galaxy's best, under slime and shadow."

"Agreed, Rang. Tare, set a course to Omega." Everyone moved to their stations and left the Citadel. As they were leaving, a mysterious ship also left the docks.

As they approached the Mass Relay, Beviin noticed unusual readings from the area's communication, "Sir, we have abnormalities. Someone is trying to jam our communications."

"Hey boss man, I think this falls under Rule 89: One's an anomaly, two's a trend."

"Bev, can you figure out who is doing it?"

"More than capable, sir. I need a minute." Bev found the communication black spot. "Got it. Unknown craft is following us, Aran. No identifying markers but construction suggest it's human in origin."

Rang shouted again, "Did I call it or what? Damn bastards are still hunting us."

Aran asked, "Beviin, do you think you can lose them?"

"I have an idea, but someone has to take over from here. Whoever does it, just needs to act like we haven't noticed them yet."

Tare worked his way to the cockpit, "I'll do it." With a pat on the shoulder, Bev got out of the seat and moved deeper into the ship.

He was working on the ship's ID signature. He was trying to change it or just delete it entirely. As he worked, Bev created a pho-signal that will act as the primary signal, until they travel through the Mass Relay, where it will then destroy itself afterwards. Bev called them on the loudspeaker, "Got it. Go through the Relay when ready."

Aran then ordered, "Tare we're making a random jump, are you ready?"

Tare wanted to make sure he heard Aran right, "Random jump, sir?"

"That's right, away from Omega." Aran then started to implement his plan, "Rang get that voice synthesizer you picked up ready. Set it for turian. Bev, get back up here solider and warm up your holo emitter."

As the Tervho made the jump, the unknown vessel captured the coordinates and followed suit. After the Tervho was clear from the Mass Relay, she used her current momentum as she made a one-eighty, facing the Mass Relay. Bev's plan worked, as the ships new ID was that of a turian vessel from the Turian Fleet. Soon the unknown human vessel appeared and they hailed them, "This is the Katarn of the turian scout flotilla Jaboth. Identify yourselves, humans."

They hesitated but eventually, they responded, "This is the…this is the SSV Okinawa and we're…"

"Liar! We are looking through the available human database, and it indicates that there is no frigate with the Alliance with that name. Prepare to be boarded, unless you want to challenge an entire turian scout flotilla all by yourself." Without answering them, they turned around and used the Mass Relay to leave. "I don't know about you guys but I thought my performance was flawless."

Aran laughed it off as he spoke to the crew, "Alright Tare, you can give the controls back to Bev now. Let's head to Omega, team."

* * *

**A/N:** I've been cranking this stuff out lately. The Cerberus Angels are made up of at least 20 operatives and our boys just killed 7. Let's see if the others are no luckier than them. Yes Sigma Squad passed at helping the Council even at their request. Omega is going to be a very fun and very hectic place when they get there.

**Mandalorian Translation:** Mando'a(Mando-AH)- Mandalorian language

Resol'nare(RAY-sol NAH-ray)- Six Actions, the tenets of Mando life

'Alright' ik'aade, tion'ad projor?(EE-kad tee-on-AD PROH-jor)- Alright babies who's next?


	8. Meeting the Pirate Queen

For the next week, Bev changed the Tervho's ID to an independent signature and using audio recordings, the four members of Sigma Squad had, to change the ship's VI voice to that of the Kaminoan Taun Wu out of familiarity. That and none of the clones would admit it but it was also out of nostalgia for the Atonement's computers. They also used that week to loss anyone that was trying to follow them.

This time, Rasen and Tare wanted to stay on the Tervho and when Sigma Squad left, they double locked the airlock just to be safe. As they entered the station, a salarian in simple clothing come up to them. When he opened his mouth most of his teeth were gone or rotting. "Ah! Welcome to Omega! You're new here, aren't you? I can always tell. Allow me to…" A batarian in black armor had walked in and the salarian turned after noticing him. "Oh…Hello, Moklan! I was just…"

All the batarian did was whisper, "Leave, Fargut. Now."

The salarian saluted as if he was with him but he wasn't fooling anyone from Sigma Squad, "Of course, Moklan! Whatever she wants!"

Moklan was ready to strike him before he ran into the station. He shook his head, "Blasted scavengers." He returned his attention to Sigma Squad, "Welcome to Omega…Sigma Squad."

Lucky they had their helmets to hide their shock, "How do you know us?"

"Secrets like yours don't stay a secret for long out here. Aria wants to speak with you before any of you cause her any trouble. I suggest you go Afterlife now and present yourself."

Aran looked back to his brothers and Rang busted out, "Yeah we'll think about it stretched face."

"Afterlife. Now." The batarian just turned around and walked away.

"Well he was chirpy." Rang looked to Araniik, "So Aran, do we met with this Aria woman?"

"If she is as powerful as I think see is, then we should. We don't want to get on the bad side of too many people now." With that said, they moved straight to the Afterlife Club.

As they reached the entrance, they found a long line with an elcor bouncer stopping most people at the door. The elcor didn't even look at them as one of the batarians behind him pointed them out and said, "Go on in. Aria is expecting you."

Walking down the hallway they don't expect much until they passed through another door. When it opened, they were astounded. Not even a Hutt's palace was as lavished. Between the four of them Rang joked, "Drugs, hookers, drinks and guns; this looks like Mandalorian heaven to me." Other than honorable battles that Mandalorians looked for, Rang was mostly right. "I'm guessing that the big honcho sits her pretty little self on that balcony. Wouldn't be too surprised if everyone here is working also on this Aria woman's payroll."

They didn't have any trouble getting to the balcony, it was when Araniik moved closer when all the fuss happened. Before he could get four steps close to her, the asari said, "That's close enough." The turian that was sitting on the cough to the right of Aran pulled out a pistol along with the batarian to his left. His reflexes moved Aran as he moved out of the line of fire from both of them, swatting the guards' hand up and pulling both of his DC-15s aiming at the turian and batarian. Prudii and Beviin turned their DC-17m on the batarians to their flanks as Rang had his DC-17m AA attachment raring to go. Unexpectedly, but not unforeseen by Sigma Squad, the two asari dancers on Aria's sides had retrieved hidden weapons aimed at Aran. Mockingly, the asari asked, "Do you seriously want to challenge me?"

Aran had a smile under his helmet, "Call it reflexes. We tend to put a few holes into anyone that points a gun at us."

She was still looking out at the club when she motioned to her people to stand down and so too did Aran, at the same time. Rang, Beviin and Prudii were still uneasy about the situation and that is why Aran was their leader, he was calm and had formulated at least two exit strategies if things with Aria should end in a fire fight. The batarian to Aran's left had activated his omni-tool after putting his pistol away. He was scanning them for something as he said, "Stand still."

Aran lifted his left arm, "If you're looking for weapons," extending the hidden vibroblade, "then you might want to start looking for a new carrier mate."

The batarian was hesitating as Aran could painfully see. He was looking through the data multiple times before he said anything. "What the hell? Scans say their humans with…with one percent of their genetic code…unknown?"

Rang corrected him, "That's 1.138% difference, thank you very much." His brothers all looked at him, "What? During that month we learned about the galaxy, I also learned about us relative to this galaxy. Just enough variance in our genes the scientific community could call us a subspecies, if we were called humans."

"So is that why you didn't call yourselves humans?" Aria had a bit of a smirk on her face.

Now Araniik corrected Aria, "No, it's because we are Mandalorians. In the past Mandalorians were a species once, but now it's more of a culture. It doesn't matter what you are; man, woman, human, Rodian, Weequay, Trandoshan or even a Wookiee; as long as you live by the codes and fight for our cause…then we might consider you to be a Mandalorian."

"So then…Mandalorians," She sat down on the couch and gestured Aran to sit as well, "…why are you here? Everyone needs more something. And they all come to me."

"That and we're looking for new equipment and supplies." Aran said.

"Yeah all that plus hiding from Cerberus, if that isn't too much trouble for you?" Again, one of those times Prudii restrained himself from striking Rang, though Bev was closer to snapping this time.

Aria was a hard woman and she was gifted at hiding her emotions, "Cerberus, huh? Those guys are nothing but a bunch of alien hating pricks. I can only assume they're after your unique technology…unless you also had a way of pissing them off as well."

They all thought back to the fighting on the Idenna and killing the shadow agents on the Citadel, "You could say we did something like that. I assume you're the person who is in on all things that happens around here."

She gave another one of her nasty looking smirks, "Everything that's worth knowing. But my information comes at a price. After all, information is power. If you want trivial thing, then go buy one of the mercs a drink or walk one of the back alleys. Better yet, talk with the dancers. They give great tours. Just don't waste my time."

Rang radioed to the rest of Sigma Squad, privately, "I think working with Hutts would be eighty-seven percent better than working with her. The thirteen percent only because there's only one of her and she's easier on the eyes and ears." Amazingly though, Aran, Bev, and Prudii completely agreed with Rang on that but she didn't need to hear any of it.

Aran sat forward, "Well that's unfortunate then. We're in need of a crew's worth for a frigate. Turian made. Besides the four of us, we have two others. I'm hoping to find at least twenty more people. I don't care what race they are, just as long as they're good at what they do and are willing to work with me and my crew."

"Ha. I'm surprised you were able to fly here." Aria was thinking about it for a minute. Then she nodded at one of the batarian guard and he activated his omni-tool. Beviin caught the data, "Here's a list with five potential individuals here on Omega. In return I expect a 'favor' for each one you do take with you."

Araniik stood up and half bowed to Aria, "Thanks for the intel. It's been a pleasure doing business with you, Aria."

She just lazily sat on the couch, "We'll see how pleasing it is when you find them."

Leaving Rang muttered between them, "Well that couldn't have gone better."

* * *

Outside the doors of Afterlife, the six of them overlooked Aria's information, "Beviin, what's on the data Aria gave us."

Through his helmet, Beviin was reading through all of the information Aria 'lent' to them. He had also contacted the Tervho, "Names, dossiers, and favorite hang outs. Most of them are usually found here in this club. We have a turian who claims he's a good pilot, a krogan that, unexpectedly, says he's a technician, and yes Rang, he can shoot you then make something to shot you again…She also put on the list a batarian who claims he can hack into any system on Omega."

Rasen chimed in, "That'll be the day I can eat human food. Who else, Bev?"

"What the…" Beviin double checked what he just read, "…An elcor?"

"Wait," Rang intruded again, "Aren't elcor the slow four-legers that speak in a monotone and explain their emotion, like Prudii." Prudii tried to hit Rang but he managed to keep the distance between them.

"_Copaani mirshmure'cye, vod_?" Prudii extended one of his knuckle blades.

Ignoring the peanut gallery, Beviin turned to Araniik, "I think we can skip this one, sir."

"No, we talk to him last. I doubt we'll take him but if we're lucky he might know someone just as good for the job. Last, Bev."

"Right. Last is…an asari? I thought most of them would be working for Aria…Scratch that. She used to work for Aria. Seems she had some dispute about something, it doesn't give details. I can assume that she has information that is stopping Aria from killing her or smart enough to stay shut. She's a strong Biotic user…other than a fighter and entertainer, I think Aria just wants her gone. How do you want to precede, sir?"

Aran had to think about it for a bit. "Truthfully I don't like this place, even with the four of us together. But with how effective Cerberus looks, I'm sure they have secret operations here as well." _The way Aria talked about them sounded like she had firsthand experience and not just out in the galaxy. _"Beviin, Doran do you two think both of you can make a security lock or locks if you have to, to keep the ship safe?"

Bev was confident as he said, "Shouldn't be more than three locks, Aran."

"Good cause we'll be splitting up. Bev, after you and Doran secure the Tervho, breaks into teams of two, preferably a commando and a quarian. Prudii, go with Bev and watch over whoever Beviin pairs you with. One team checks the krogan, the other visits the batarian." Both Beviin and Prudii nodded in agreement. Even though he no one else could see it, Rasen and Tare also nodded. "I'll scout the asari and Rang sees the turian. After we all have reached our targets, we rendezvous at the elcor's area."

Rang mockingly replied, "Oh, dalycbuir ni ru copaani haa'taylir ruug asari. Tayli'bac, ni mar'eyir jari'eyc senaar troan." With the data they needed, Rang and Aran moved deeper into Afterlife, while Prudii and Bev returned to the Tervho first. After Beviin and Rasen secured her, they went off looking for the batarian, with Prudii and Tare hunting for the krogan.

* * *

The batarian went by the name Forta and rumors claimed that he single handily shut off all of Omega's security systems for about a minute. He was a loner that had isolated himself in his apartment near Afterlife.

The turian was named Kixritvira, but anyone outside the turians just called him Kix. One of his ancestors was a legendary fighter pilot during the Krogan Rebellions and his father was one during the Relay 314 Incident. Kix was also an exceptional pilot but after being kick out of the turian military for multiple charges of insubordination and other charges, he never got the chance to prove it when the geth attacked the Citadel.

Not much was known about the krogan called Vren, other than he was branded a clanless after his clan on Tuchanka was destroyed by clan Ganar. With no way to return, other krogans that met him mocked him for the fact he was here while his clan died. Most of the time those krogans left with a broken face afterward. With no sense of direction, Vren turned his frustration into focus as he made things for the battlefield. He has sold exclusively to Blue Suns in exchange for credits and the promise to kill every Blood Pack member they met with his equipment.

Nyona was a former employee of Aria's. Other than them having a work related dispute and being a well-trained asari commando, Nyona was still in the middle of her Maiden stage at two hundred thirty eight. Aria didn't privy Sigma Squad about her either out of respect for her or distrust for them, most likely the latter.

The elcor named Banthar ran a ship repair shop down in the lower levels of Omega. He takes months and the prices at times were outrageous but ships were said to feel and act as if they just come straight out of the foundry that assembled them.

* * *

Traveling the streets of Omega Rasen felt uneasy, even with her 1.83 meter tall armored friend with her. Beviin didn't like the feeling about the place either. Bev spotted many that wanted to approach Rasen but stayed away at the sight of him. A batarian was stupid enough to confront Bev with five others backing him. "Hey. Human. What are you doing in our turf?"

Bev really didn't want a situation, "How do you know I'm not a batarian?"

Unfortunately he wasn't as stupid as Bev hoped, "Please, no batarian has armor that advanced and besides, a batarian wouldn't be caught dead with a quarian, unless it was a slave. And judging from her, I don't think she's your pet."

Rasen was tempted to pull out her shotgun but Bev beat her to it, as he grabbed the batarian by the arms and pulled him into his knee. Then he turned the batarian towards his men, putting him in a headlock with his right arm and extended his knuckle vibroblade to his neck. The batarian could feel the vibrating blade, as Bev inched it closer and closer. "If all of you want to die then bring it, but leave Rasen out of it," tilling his head towards her. "Or you can tell me what I want to know and we'll leave."

The leader finally chocked, telling his men to stand down, "Alright. Alright. What do you want to know?"

Still keeping him in the headlock, "There's a batarian, name's Forta and…"

"You're looking for him?" It was one of the others. "He's about six doors down that way to your left, can't miss it."

With the information Bev withdrew his vibroblade and kicked the batarian to the floor. "Thanks for the intel. I hope we don't meet again."

With the information, Rasen and Beviin left. Rasen looked at Bev, "You didn't have to do that you know."

"What, threaten him? I'm sure they've done worse to others."

"No," Rasen looked to the floor, "I mean leaving me out of the fight. There were six of them…"

"Five. Effectively the leader could have been considered dead and the others looked like cowards. Kill the head and the body dies, most of the time." Bev was thinking just as Vhonte thought him.

"But you didn't need to take such a gamble, Bev. I mean, I could have helped you somehow."

"Only risk what is necessary. If I died fighting them, you could have escaped and continued the search." Bev still saw himself as expendable and was thinking just like Prudii.

"Still Bev…that was…colder then what I expected from you." Bev couldn't answer her about that.

Bev dropped the subject, "We're here." Looking at the door they saw why it was not that hard to miss. The original lock was removed and replaced with a hand-made system. Several rounds have been put into the door and Bev could see the metal sheets covering the holes on the other side.

Bev knocked on the door and a disgruntled voice answered, "What? I already paid my rent and 'protection' for the month, so go away!"

"We're not here for that. We want to talk to you, Forta." Beviin took a step back.

"…What are you; turian, batarian, human…"

With pride hidden deep within, Bev replied, "Mandalorian. My boss is looking for good people to man our ship."

A number of locks can be heard being undone, then about a moment later he said, "Hurry up." Inside the small one man apartment was filled with wires running in all directions. The batarian locked most of the locks and returned to his desk to work on something. On the way through the maze of wires he just told them, "Don't touch anything." Now sitting at his desk Forta turned to face them, "So, what do you want with me? You're obviously not with any of the gangs, merc bands or one of Aria's people; especial with that quarian."

This time Rasen was the one to speak, "Do you have a problem with quarians?"

"I got nothin' against them. Truthfully I think your people are better than mine." Of all the batarians Rasen has encountered, she has never met one so modest. "Most batarians you met in the galaxy, that are not from our homeworld, are usually a pirate, slaver or gang member. Meet a quarian and most of the time they talk about their traditions, culture, family; other than that Golo fella that use to live next door, all quarians are connect, for lack of a better word." Rasen had to think about what Forta had just said and in all accounts, he was right. Every quarian in the Migrant Fleet was like family to her and she always thought about her people's ways. "But back to the matter at hand, you said you're looking for crew members, right?"

"That's right." Beviin continued, "Currently we only have six crewmen for a frigate."

"A frigate? How many others are you hoping to join you?"

Bev answered, "Twenty others. Nineteen, if you're in."

The batarian rubbed his head with his free hand and let out a sigh. "Join your crew or stay in this shithole…hmmm…" After about a minute of thinking, Forta gave Bev and Rasen an answer, "Give me about ten minutes to finish what I was doing and pack what I want. A vigilantly has shown up recently and he's been nothing but trouble for the gangs and mercs, I'd rather not be Omega when it does turn into a war zone."

* * *

Outside the door, Rasen spoke to Bev about their new crew member, "Can we really trust him; I mean he even said most batarians we'll meet aren't exactly friendly."

"If he does anything 'bad', he'll have to deal with the six of us, right?" He extended his arm to her.

With a smile on her face she answered, "Right." Taking the hand and shaking. _That's a tight grip. I wonder if it's just the armor._

Walking out of the door, the batarian had only one duffel bag full of stuff. "OK, are we going to the ship yet?"

"No. First we rendezvous with everyone else here." Beviin pulled out a map of Omega. "You'll meet your new boss and other shipmates. Then we return to the ship."

Forta simply shrugged, "Fine, the sooner we leave Omega the better. So what the hell is a 'Mandalorian' anyway?"

Beviin stated walking as he told Forta, "I'll explain along the way."

* * *

**A/N:** Yes, I had to use Fargut and Moklan. They were a great opening for Omega and they still are. Bev got to show how cold he was and the others are like that, Rang wouldn't be so serious about it but he's just as committed. Yes the infamous 1138 bit is in here for any Lucas fans who understand like I do. I'll look for a way to working in another famous Star Wars line eventually. Again making up names is one of my weaknesses so pardon them.

A forewarning so none of you can yell at me about it later, I might be getting a summer job soon but I'm not 100% certain so don't expect updates for a while unless I get a brainstorm like chapter 4 & 5...so until the next update thanks for reading folks.

**Mandalorian Translation:** Copaani mirshmure'cye, vod?(Koh-PAH-nee MEERSH-moo-RAY-shay, vod?)- Are you looking for a smack in the face, mate?

dalyc()- female (Gender is normally implied in context, but when necessary to clarify, the adjectives jagyc (male) or dalyc (female) are added)

'Oh' dalycbuir, ni ru copaani haa'tayli ruug 'asari'.(DAH-leeshboo-EER nee roo KOH-pan-EER har-TIE-lee roog) -Oh mommy, I wanted to see the old asari.

Tayli'bac, ni mar'eyi jari'eyc senaar troan.(TIE-lee-BAHK nee memah-AY-ee JAR-ee-aysh sen-ARR trawn) -Fine, I'll find the ugly bird face.


	9. Gathering forces

**A/N: **Still looking for a job but thoughts keep running through my mind and I have to write notes to keep them afloat. Also I'm finishing my transfer game in ME2 to ME3. I'm going to stop translating words like vode so it feels more like a conversation except when I'm not using the brothers/sisters meaning. All of these meeting are happening around the same time, Rang and Araniik just had more time to look is all.

* * *

Traveling through the Afterlife Club, one has to be vigilant, especial when someone was with you. Prudii had mentally noted the steadily growing number of eyes that were following him, but thankfully his helmet hid his eyes that noticed them. During this time, he would have contacted Tali to try and lighten himself up but he had other duties to worry about; protecting Tare'Nara vas Kira and finding the krogan Vren.

Beviin paired Prudii with Tare because Prudii does his job to the letter. If he was ordered by his superior to jump, he'd already be jumping and asking how high. During one of Sigma Squad's retrieval missions for the Republic, on a world lost to the Separatist, as they were leaving, Dagger's gunship was damaged by a pair of rockets and she wasn't able to handle all of the weight. Prudii was ready to jump off, even though there were several droids still following and if they didn't kill him the fall probably would. Before his last foot left the gunship, Araniik grabbed his arm and pulled him back in. After head butting him, Aran placed a charge onto the package the droids were after and pushed the crate off the gunship. It was full of very sensitive Republic intelligence that the droid hadn't gone through yet. With about eighteen troopers worth of weight relieved, the gunship was able to make it through the planet's atmosphere. The charge was a 'Rang special', so they knew that create and all of its content was history. Aran chewed Prudii out about it but he understood what his brother was thinking, 'the mission always comes first'. But Aran also followed this mentality all other clones followed, except he wasn't willing to throw away his life or his brothers' lives just for some stupid data. After that, Prudii started to think of different ways of fulfill his objectives.

Tare never went to Omega during his Pilgrimage but he had heard the stories from others that have, never do anything against Aria and always keep your eyes open for your own safety. Tare may have had marine training but he had never been in a full combat situation. Tare hadn't noticed Aria's people that were watching them, like Prudii had. Tare had been informed by Rasen about the four clone commandos, but he still was trying to converse with Prudii as they searched Afterlife, "So…Prudii is it, you don't seem to talk very much." All he was getting was silence from Prudii as they walked. "I mean, not that it is a bad thing or anything but we are shipmates and we should get better acquainted with each other, as friends…" Prudii stopped him as he pointed out a krogan sitting alone at the far corner in a stall. Prudii had signaled Tare to stay close to him as they approached the krogan.

The krogan may have had his back to the rest of the club but he wasn't deaf. He could hear them walking towards him. Finishing his large mug, Vren slammed the glass to the table and said, "So, more Blood Pack wanting a piece of this forgotten warrior, huh?" His voice was similar to Wrex's but not as scratched up or wore out. He stood up and turned around only to see a male quarian and an armored man in all black. As soon as he saw them, the krogan sat back down in his seat, "What do you want, human?"

Prudii corrected him, "Mandalorian."

"Whatever you want to call yourself, mammal." Vren then took a bite out of a large piece of meat. "So, why are you here? And why are you bothering me?"

"Looking for a crew. Aria directed us to you." Prudii just stood there unmoving.

"Why would you want a broken shell of a krogan like me?" Vren still continued to eat his meal.

Tare stepped in before Prudii could answer, "Because we need your skills on our ship." Prudii gave him a stern look and Tare could feel it.

Vren laughed loudly for a few seconds, "So, someone 'needs' my skills, huh? Why would anyone trust a krogan with their ship?"

Prudii made sure Tare wouldn't step in this time, "Not my ship. My _vod_'s. Also, your people are similar to ours."

Vren had traveled around the galaxy and has never seen or heard of any species that were remotely similar, individuals maybe, but not an entire race. After a few seconds of thinking, he stood up and turned to them, "Alright then, prove it to me. We fight until one submits or dies. Let's move to one of the alley ways. Aria wouldn't want us ruining her club."

As they left Afterlife, Tare confronted Prudii, "What are you doing? We want him to join us, not get you killed!"

"Warrior thing. You wouldn't understand. Stay out of fight, if you want to live." Prudii knew of ways to defeat foes without killing them, but against a krogan, he might have to mix up the strategies.

They arrived at a decent size area with a stairway nearby. "This place should do fine." There were a few homeless beings around but nothing else would get in their way. "So we only have one rule; no guns." as Vren unsheathed a dagger that was attached to the side of his armor.

Prudii pushed Tare back, "Stay near door." as he pulled out both of his knuckle blades. As the two of them started to circle, some of the people around ran down the stairs to avoid them while others were still asleep or dead.

Prudii could see, even though he hadn't left Omega for some time, Vren was as fit as any krogan could be. They both assessed each other for about twenty seconds before one of them did anything. Prudii made the first move; he wanted to see the reach and reaction time of his opponent; unfortunately Vren saw through his feint and swung heavy and close. Prudii stepped back and cloaked. Even though Prudii was cloaked, his footsteps weren't and he knew that, but the small area made each step echo. Vren had learned a thing or two about pinpointing the source of sound; otherwise he would be dead by now from Blood Pack. Closing his eyes, Vren stopped and listened. After about four seconds, Vren swung around to his left and two seconds later, Prudii could be seen moving back again. Using his magnetic boots Prudii ran up the wall high enough to avoid Vren's dagger. When he saw the opportunity, Prudii jumped onto the krogan's hump and gave light jabs with his blades. Due to the vibrations from the blades, they were rupturing some of Vren's blood vessels. Nothing a bit of krogan regeneration couldn't handle with time. But the blood loss and vibrations were making Vren lose his balance. After the lumbering brute fell to the floor, Prudii rested his blades to Vren's primary heart and head, "Finished."

With a grunt, Vren tossed his dagger aside. "Good fight. I'm lucky none of the Blood Pack can fight like that." Prudii withdrew his blades and helped the krogan up. Prudii then walked over to grab the dagger and handed it back to Vren. "My thanks. You had me going for a bit. But I saw the warrior's spirit in your movements. If your 'vod' is anything like you, then I'll think about joining your crew."

"Better than me." Prudii went to check on Tare who was fine, unsure about his combat skills amongst his new crew, but fine.

"Good, then let's go. I've got nothing better to do today…other than killing Blood Pack members." With that, Prudii and Tare led Vren to the rendezvous point.

* * *

Rang may be a bit of a goof around his _vode_ but he could be serious when he needed to be and now was one of those times. Rang knew about Aria's spies that were watching him but he couldn't pinpoint them all. The data didn't give Rang much, as there were plenty of turians around Omega. As Rang searched the upper level of Afterlife he spotted his potential target. He sat at the bar far enough to not look suspicious but close enough for his suit's systems to listen in. After about a minute of talking he wasn't the right turian, so Rang left. _Shit this is going to be a lot tougher than I thought. _Rang didn't want to do the stereotypical think but he was getting desperate, so he went to one of the bartenders for information. He moved to the bar at the other end of the area and went to the turian bartender, "Yo, barkeep. I need some info."

The turian was cleaning a glass, "Hey pal, if you want that, go talk to Aria. I just serve drinks here."

Rang leaned closer to the turian and whispered to him, "Oh come on. Don't tell me Aria doesn't pay you extra for any juicy info her spies might not know about."

The turian looked around then leaned towards him and whispered, "Fine. Just don't say you got anything from me. So what do you want?"

Rang continued to keep the conversation between the two of them, "I'm looking for a turian…"

The turian sneered, "Gotta be more specific buddy. There are a lot of us around here."

"He goes by the name Kix; I probably couldn't say the full name properly."

The bartender thought about it, "Kix…Kix…I've heard about that guy. It's said that he's supposed to be the son of some great fighter pilot or something, I don't know. From what I've hear, nobody lets him near the controls of a ship though; even simulators. He is supposed to be a bareface so he should be easy to spot. Don't know if the term behind it is true about him though, but just the same you should watch yourself around the guy." The term 'bareface' has multiple meaning to a turian but the bartender was referring to Kix not having any facial tattoos and the reference of not to be trusted. "Other than looking at every turians' face that isn't behind a counter or work for Aria, I don't know where he hangs out."

Rang spoke loudly, "Thanks for the 'drink'." He slid over about twenty credits to the bartender and walked away. Now Rang's medical scanners would be used to the fullest. He sets it to look for dextro-amino acid lifeforms without 'ink'. Rang was vague on ink because he wasn't sure what could last a lifetime on metallic exoskeletons. His scans were pinning a lot of lifeforms but all of them had something on their face.

During his thirty minutes of exploring Afterlife, he found four without facial tattoos but all of them said they weren't Kix. Rang searched for another ten minutes and found another possible candidate. The turian was sitting alone at a bar and he was half-drunk. Rang listened in, "Hey come on…just one more for Kixritvira…hic…"

The batarian bartender just barked, "You still haven't paid me for the last eight you had."

Rang walked in and decided to have fun speaking Mando'a to the half drunk turian, "_Gal'gala_!" Rang then paid for Kix's eight owed glasses and a ninth one. The bartender just shrugged as he took the credits, handed a new glass to the turian and walked over to another customer.

The moment the glass was in his talons, the turian guzzled it down at once and slammed the empty container onto the counter. "Thanks for the drinks pal but…hic…I don't think I recognize you. Hic…I don't own you anything so what do you want? Hic…" Kixritvira still had his senses about him, it just that he wasn't going to be walking straight for a while.

All Rang could do was shrug, "Am I that obvious?"

Kix doesn't even turn to him, "You're…hic…covered head to toe in…hic…armor and you were…hic…were willing to pay for me…hic. I'm no stranger to needing something…hic."

"So cut to the chase then. I'm Rang and we are in need a pilot; not that our current pilot isn't good or anything, we just heard that you're probably better. Oh, did I forget to say that she is a turian frigate too."

Now Kix was interested, "Turian made you say…hic. If you guys are willing to put faith in a 'bareface' like me then what's to loss…hic. I got all my valuables on hand so let's go…" Trying to stand but failing as he grabbed the counter for support.

Rang helped him up, "Not so fast. I'm a medic, so give me a few seconds so I don't have to carry you out of here." He gave Kix some pills for him that got him back on his feet. "There, now we'll be meeting our boss and the rest of the crew." Rang walked next to Kix to keep an eye on him, as they worked their way to the meeting point.

* * *

As Araniik traveled around Afterlife, he noticed most of the asari he was encountering work for Aria directly or indirectly, few were just living on Omega. Aran was aware of the asari and their ability to reproduce using other species, which he figured was why so many species could be attracted to them, almost like Twi'lek females but having blue kids most of the time. Unlike the other leads, Araniik had a photo to work with to help him but the problem was all asari have the same face; the only real difference between two would be their skin tone, voice and any tattoos or natural patterns on them. As he searched, Aran passed both Rang and Prudii as they looked for their person. Aran stayed out of their sight and out of their way as he looked for Nyona.

He searched all three levels of Afterlife and none of the asari matched the picture. Aran was running out of time, when he saw an armored turian that looked like he worked for Aria. "Hey _vod_. I'm looking for Nyona, know her?"

"Nyona?" The turian had to think about it before he remembered, "Right her. She was fired by Aria about four months ago or so about something, don't really know. If you're looking for her then you should try searching the VIP section. Only problem is you'll need a password."

"What's the password?"

"Sorry, I seem to be having memory problems lately." Aran got the hint and quietly handed him twenty credits. "Now I remember, just say Jaruut sent ya."

Aran nodded, "Thanks mate."

"Nah, Aria has been looking for a way to get rid of her or at least off Omega. For some reason she doesn't want to just do it the easy way." Aran figured the 'easy way' would end with a loud bang.

* * *

As Aran reached the VIP section, he was met by a turian bouncer with white markings at the door. "What do you want?"

"I'm looking for someone. She said to meet her inside. She told me that a friend of her's said this was better than the rest of the club." Aran lied through his teeth.

"Yeah, then she must know someone smart. Who was it?"

Aran smiled under his helmet, "Jaruut."

"Go on in. Word to the wise: start a fight, we'll hurt you. Someone attacks you, it's okay to defend yourself." The bouncer unlocked the door and stepped aside. After Aran walked through, the turian locked the door.

* * *

Entering the club, Aran noticed he was the only one wearing armor or had weapons and so too did most of the patrons and employees. Before he could start searching, an asari that matched Nyona's profile approached him, "Heard you might be looking for me?"

Aran decided he would play along for now, "Maybe, or maybe I came here for a drink."

The asari just laughed, "And you think you're funny?"

Aran couldn't stop himself from saying, "You're probably thinking of one of my brothers, Miss…"

"Name's Nyona, if you don't already know." She led Araniik to one of the secluded booths. "So, it looks like Aria is still trying to get rid of me. The question is how; bounty hunter, mercenary or are you just plain gullible?"

Aran had to be careful as to what he said here. The hidden weapon compartments near the bartenders were almost overlooked by him, almost, "No, I'm just filling seats on my ship. Aria just put your name on that list of potential candidates. I'm only curious about why she did."

All Nyona could do was scoffed at him, "The reason why Aria wants me off Omega is because I'm getting bit too powerful for her to control. Think of Aria as a matriarch and the asari that work for her the many disciples she has. And I was her best and smartest; maybe too smart for what she wanted. I began running a few side projects that Aria wasn't fully aware of and I guess I threatened her authority. After she kicked me out, I took control of this section of Afterlife. I still work for her, just not directly. Now she thinks she has found a way to get me off Omega, huh?"

Aran noticed a scope was aimed at Nyona's head and was recording everything. "Truth be told, I'm just here to see if I wanted you on my ship. Seeing that a two hundred thirty-eight year old can handle herself alone here, I don't believe I have any reason to be here anymore."

As Aran started to get up to leave, Nyona stopped him, "That's it? You're not going to even try to convince me to join you or anything!"

"Why bother, you've already made up your mind. Besides, if you're as good as you think you are then none of Aria's people can touch you here. If not then you have more enemies then you know and it's only a matter of time before one of them kills you." Araniik looked up before he started to walk towards the entrance. As he began to walk Aran counted in his head, _3, 2, 1 and…_

"Wait…" Nyona was behind him, "what do you mean by that?" Nyona wasn't as good at hiding her emotions like Aria.

Aran turned to her, "She's been ruling Omega for the past how many centuries now? You don't think she can't convince your people to kill you when she wants? I've heard stories about other crimelords from my galaxy that dispatched with rivals and enemies that threaten their power within the day or week using bounty hunters or their own resources. The only reason I can think of why Aria has let you live this long is for her to find a way to remove you without killing you. She must not want to kill her best student, or she might respect you enough not to waste your potential or she still has use for you. I can't say anything for her though." Aran nodded and started walking away again.

Araniik was right, the only reason Aria hadn't already killed her was because Nyona was working towards Aria's interests but now Nyona was becoming more trouble than she was worth, and Nyona knew it. She had to play her cards right, if she wanted to leave Omega on good terms and with some credits. Nyona whispered to herself, "Well, I think my time on Omega has finally come to an end then." She stopped Aran again, "Alright…I'll join you. But I need a few minutes before I can leave here." Aran doesn't turn to her and just nodded as he moved to wait for her just outside the VIP section.

With everything squared away, she left with fourteen thousand credits on hand, along with fifteen hundred thousand she had been siphoning into a private account and a handful of contact if she needed anything from Omega again; which everyone does, even her. Leaving her club, Nyona found Aran leaning against a wall near the entrance. "Alright, so where's your ship?"

"We're not going there just yet. You'll be meeting my brothers, and hopefully, the rest of the crew."

As Araniik led her to the elcor's store, Nyona couldn't help asking, "I have to ask, what's with the skirt-thing? Like the look or something?"

Aran kept the helmet muted when he laughed, "No. It is a symbol of rank but it also has its practical uses in a fire-fight. And I personally have another use for it." as he looked down at one of the hidden ACP repeaters underneath. "I don't care what anyone else thing of it, besides those that know what it really is of course. Let's hurry, my _vode_ are probably heading to the rendezvous point as we speak."

* * *

**A/N: **I'll try to keep writing the story. Also the ship will have people working on it like both Normandy's in ME. I'm only going to focus on the team that goes on missions with Sigma Squad.

**Mandalorian Translation: **Gal'gala(GAL-gal-arr)- Let me buy you a drink! Have a drink!

vod(vohd)- brother, sister, comrade, 'mate'

Most plural forms add an -e


	10. A buisness deal

**A/N: **Forgive the long wait but balancing between a job, this, another story and my games it is are hard act to keep up. Any who the new team members get introduced to each other and the rest of Sigma Squad. I continuously fix chapters after posting so if something doesn't read right check back every now and then to see if I changed it otherwise you can PM me if I don't change it after a week. So let get to the main event...

* * *

Aran led Nyona to one of Omega's ship shops. Stopping there, Nyona asked, "This is the meeting place? Why'd you choose Banthar's shop of all places?"

"Not really our choice. Aria put him on our list, and I want to know why."

They did not have to wait long as Beviin, Rasen, and Forta showed up. Beviin was leading the group and saluted to Araniik, "Beviin reporting, sir. We successfully recruited the batarian, Forta."

Araniik saluted back to let Bev stand at ease, "I see that." Aran looked at the batarian and extended a hand to him, "My name is Araniik. If that's too hard to say then Aran is fine. I'm your new boss."

Forta used his free hand to grab Aran's, "From your friend's reaction here, I was expecting more of a military greeting from you."

"We'll get to the discipline stuff after everyone gets settled in on the ship. We're still waiting for two more of our brothers though…"

Before Aran could continue he was cut off by the louder member of Sigma Squad, "Oh Sigma, I'm home! And look what I found drunk around the bars, can we keep him?"

Despite the fact that it was hard to read a turian's facial expressions, they could see the discomfort on the face of the turian with Rang. "So I'm to work with batarians and quarians. Not to mention 'that'." Kix pointed at Nyona.

Nyona confronted Kix, "Well at least I don't smell like vomit and liquor scale for brain." Rang stopped both of them from escalating by stepping in between and pulling out his knuckle blade and DC-15s.

"Hey, you can go back to the bar where I found you or you can fly our ship, take your pick." Letting Kixritvira think about it, Rang turned to his brothers, "Hi boss man, Bev, Rasen. So, now we just have to wait for 'gloomy', huh? If you don't mind," Rang moved closer to Nyona, "Hello Miss. My name is Rang and I could make your night very 'explosive'."

Aran stopped Nyona, "Better be careful. He is our demolition man but I think you should be more so Rang. Especial with what I've heard…" Aran has been known to pull Rang's leg every now and then but he has never let Rang get into trouble he couldn't get out of.

As tensions were just about to begin to ease, Prudii, Tare and Vren arrived. Vren had spotted the odd bunch and expressed his opinion, "Not as strong of a bunch as I was expecting but its better then I feared. Can't say I'm glad to work with a turian but I'm less so for her. Does Nyona have to be with you?"

Nyona greeted her old 'friend', "I see Aria still has a sense of humor. Hello Vren, it's been awhile."

"Not long enough!" Vren's crest pressed against Nyona's forehead.

Prudii ignored them and saluted Aran, then moved back to Vren and the asari. "Problem?"

It took a few second before Vren broke eye contact with Nyona, "Nothing I can't push aside for the time being. So, which one of these three is the leader?" Prudii just pointed Aran out. Vren gauged Aran and he saw that Prudii did tell him the truth about Aran being better than him. "Names Vren for those that don't know," specifically Kix and Forta, "It'll be interesting working with this group. So now can we see your ship?"

"Sorry Vren, but we're going inside the shop first." Araniik walked in first with the other three clones following without question. Uncertainty can be seen in the eyes of their four new recruits but they also were curious about the elcor.

Before everyone went in, Rasen talked to her quarian 'brother', "So Tare'Nara, how was your first mission with Prudii?"

Understandably, Rasen can see Tare's hesitation, "It was…interesting to say the least. Prudii willingly took on Vren single-handedly…and won. Other than navigations…I don't know how I can contribute to Sigma Squad."

Rasen put a hand on Tare's shoulder, "Don't worry Tare, they are highly trained soldiers but they wouldn't have you with us if Aran or one of the others didn't think you could handle it. Come on, before they decide to leave us outside the shop."

Inside the building, two salarians were seen restocking, cleaning and performing various other tasks. As the doors opened, a chime went off and the salarian closest to the counter greeted their new guest, "Welcome friends to Banthar's Spare Parts. If you need any assistance don't hesitate to ask me. We have a special today on armor plating and shield modifications. Now, what can I get you folks today?"

The other salarian had just finished placing one of the ship parts on display when he dismissed the other salarian, "Just stop, Maren."

"Well, I'm sorry Farzen, but at least I think about customer satisfaction."

"Yeah, well go to the back and help Banthar with inventory, otherwise it'll take him a month." Without much fuss the salarian identified as Maren went through a pair of door into the back of the store. "Sorry about my brother, he's always been a bit of a kiss ass. Anyway, this is Banthar's. If you need anything just ask."

Farzen was about to continue re-shelving when Araniik said, "I want to speak with Banthar."

Farzen was uncertain but he began to move to the back door. Farzen turned back to Aran to say, "Give him five or six minutes."

As they waited patiently, Banthar finally walked in. He first noticed Nyona and assumed she was the one that asked for him, "Surprised greeting: Welcome Nyona. Is there something special that you needed from me or my store?"

"Not me it's…"

Aran interrupted, "I need something from you and your store."

Banthar turned to the commando, "Polite Curiosity: Who are you, sir? I have never seen your type of armor before."

"And you're never going to see anything like it again, mate." Aran went straight to business, "I need upgrades for my ship and questions answered." Banthar was uncertain about what he'd ask, "Aria put you on a list of potential crew members for my ship. Now what I want to know is why."

"Uncertainty: I do not know why Aria would do that. I do not like space travel."

"Ironic, since you sell ship parts." Rang couldn't help it. Soon after, he almost dropped a piece of hull plating. "It's OK!"

"Clarification: I do not like space travel itself. That does not mean I cannot have an appreciation for the ships or their craftsmanship behind their designs."

Rasen had examined most of what was on display, "I can see that. With half of these parts just from here, we could fix one of the Flotilla's ships that will last for a good ten or so years with proper maintenance."

Banthar bowed to her, "Proud Appreciation: Thank you, Miss Quarian. I take great pride in hearing your peoples' opinion about my wears. Back to the matter at hand: I would be of no use on a ship. Clever idea: I have a proposition, if you are interested." Aran turned to his brothers, who all nodded to him. He turned back to Banthar and nodded to confirm. "Curiously: Have you ever heard of the secret human organization known only as 'Cerberus'?"

Before Rasen could say anything, Rang shouted, "Yeah we've ran into those idiots a few time before, two-thirds of the meetings ended with their death."

"Excited: Then you are more than capable of handling this job. Omega has at least two warehouses used by Cerberus. A business partner of mine; a volus named Iden Kret. Doubtful: I do not believe it his real name. He has used mercenaries to capture three bases and sell any technology from the bases at exorbitant prices. If you happen to find any bases, I can pay you for anything you find or we can establish a discount for my wears."

"I have a plan Araniik…if we go through with this, sir." Prudii was good at planning strategically for himself but he normally doesn't plan for the squad. So it couldn't be helped when Beviin and Rang gave him blank stares.

* * *

At one of Afterlife's many bars, a Cerberus agent had at least six glasses for his lost 'Angels'. "Human, I think you've had enough." The asari bartender was getting agitated only because he hadn't paid for any of the drinks yet, sliding him another glass. As he drank the seventh one, he saw something, or someone, that he didn't think he would see. He almost spit the drink back into the glass. "What's the matter, can't handle it?"

"No, no. I just remembered I'm supposed to meet someone soon." He handed down a hand full of credits worth eighty-five credits, "Keep the change." As he followed his believed target, he contacted the rest of the team, "Angels, this is 'Cassiel'. I think I'm following one of the four targets."

"What do you mean you 'think'?"

"The target doesn't have the unique armor. He's wearing civilian clothing; white t-shirt and cargo pants, and is alone. From what Cerberus intel was able to dig up, his face matches up with one of the targets." He was trying to keep out of sight while still following the scared man.

"Continue to follow him. We will send operatives to rendezvous and capture him."

* * *

Prudii was in contact with his team and he was trying to resist the urge to kill his follower. "You guys better be ready for the easy part."

"Easy part?" Rasen knew the four of them and their combat prowess but with the plan Prudii thought up, she thought his part was easy.

Rang told her, "Trust me Sen; all we have to do is gun through the base. Prudii has to break four of Vhonte's life rules."

"Sen?" Rasen was uncertain if she liked Rang's new nickname he just gave her.

Araniik started the list, "The four rules Prudii's trying to ignore are; Rule one: Never be alone, unless absolutely necessary."

Beviin continued, "Rule two: Always carry a weapon, concealed or otherwise."

Rang added, "Rule three: Always keep an eye on your surroundings."

Then all three simultaneously said, "Rule four: Never get trapped into a corner."

* * *

Eventually the operative, codenamed Cassiel, with the aid of five other agents, had 'herded' their target into a dead end alleyway. With the target cornered, they had their weapons at the ready. Three had assault rifles, one had a shotgun and the others were carrying pistols. "Alright, we got you cornered. Place your hands on your head and get on your knees." He hesitated, but after a moment of delay, he complied. One of the agents bashed the back of his weapon against his head, then tied his hands behind him. "This is Cassiel; bring the dropship around. We have the target, repeat we have the target."

"Roger that, ship inbound. Great job guys. Score another one for Cerberus." Unknown to any of them though, their quarry was transmitting a very subtle signal hiding behind all of Omega's comm. traffic. Only the ears of a Sullustan or Bith would have been able to detect it normally. Luckily his team has the gear to follow the little bird to the snake's hole.

* * *

Almost an hour had passed since he was first placed into his holding cell at the secret Cerberus warehouse. But to their discontent, he was aware the whole time as they learn when they first tried to get blood samples from him. All they got back was four guys with several foot sized lumps with bloody noses and no blood from him. Even with the restrains on his hands, he was able to defend himself quite easily against the highly trained Cerberus agents. With luck, they were able to move him into a reinforced room that normally served as a weapon testing room but for him, it was going to be an interrogation room. Now tied to a chair and a metal table in front of him, the man that first spotted him had the 'privilege' to have a go at him first.

"So do you have a name?" All he was getting was silence from the scared man. "Alright, we can always give you a name. How about Edward? No, maybe Carl or Steve…"

He quietly said, "RC-2433…"

"Now we're getting somewhere. Can I call you RC? Maybe 24 or 33?"

He just repeated himself, "RC-2433…"

"Fine RC-2433. Now tell me where you and your friends got your equipment from? Are you testing these things for the turians?" He tossed a few photos of the man in his full armor and his 'brothers'. "How did you loss us after going through the Mass Relay? TALK!" Cassiel slammed his fist against the table.

RC-2433 leaned forward as the chair squeaked against the floor. Cassiel leaned in to listen. "You are all going to die…" At that exact moment a huge explosion shook everything. With that distraction, RC-2433 used the chair he was tied to, as he swung around hitting Cassiel in the ribcage. Now RC-2433 had the legs aiming at Cassiel as he ran him against the wall. Cassiel tried to fight him off as he held onto two of the legs. After twelve seconds of struggling, RC-2433 dropped the chair to the ground and rammed into Cassiel's gut, giving him a good head butt right after.

The funny thing was, RC-2433 was untying himself the whole time and he just finished. He moved to Cassiel as he lied in pain on the floor. RC-2433 pulled out a hidden chip that was sowed into one of the pant pockets to show Cassiel then, before he could do anything, RC-2433 stood on Cassiel's hands as he grabbed his head and forcefully turned it 120° to his left. With him dead, he still owed five Cerberus agents very painful deaths and unfortunate for them, he remembered each of their faces.

* * *

**Minutes before the explosion…**

Arriving at Prudii's signal, Nyona recognized the district, "So Aria knew about Cerberus' little hidihole. I didn't think I would need this…" She pulled out plans for a warehouse. "This is a basic warehouse design, I'm sure they remodeled inside."

"Agree. Commandos, let's see if we can militarize those plans." On Araniik's order, Beviin took a copy of the plans and the three of them worked for about two minutes designing what they believe to be the interior, also accounting for Prudii's signal. "From Prudii's movements this place looks like a depo of some sort. If they didn't change any of the power lines then we can assume a major system is located around here." Araniik pointed towards one of the walls.

"And that's were one of these babies come in play." as Rang waved a pack of explosive in his hand.

Beviin interrupted Rang's happy explosive thoughts, "But before we can do that, we should disrupt any surveillance system as well as communication. Rasen, Forta…"

"Step aside. If their using Omega's systems as a base then all I really have to worry about are the Cerberus encryption codes." Forta had activated his omni-tool and was reviewing his hacking programs.

Rasen added, "You're in luck, Bev and I have been working on Cerberus tech. I'm sure the codes have a similar base structure or system." She and Bev may have only worked on that one set of Cerberus armor but she was certain it could help.

Within a minute the three of them successfully disabled the exterior cameras, "Alright, we have about a minute window before the systems return to normal."

"More than enough time four-eyes." Rang rushed over to place his charge on the wall they believe to be the location where they have the power and security controls. "Now the 'Rang Special' is special not only for it's bigger explosion but for the fact that I also have it use a different code them most other GAR explosive packs. Now what was that little hymn I made for it…" he snapped his fingers after remembering, "That's right, 'black, rEd, greeN; I'll tear you at the seams. Orange, white, blUe; I'm coming after you. yelLow, purple, pink; You all are going to sink.'" It would be hard to understand if one only heard the song without seeing it; the color code for a Rang Special was orange, red, blue, yellow and finally green. Aran, Bev, Rasen and Tare were already behind the two X3Ms as Rang ran as fast as he could to join them, "Dibs on using the krogan as a meat shield if he dies!" With that hint everyone else also took cover behind the vehicles.

Barley a second after the last person got behind the speeder the explosion not only destroyed the wall but also two-thirds of the room and half of the floor above. As Rang looked at the damage he caused, all he could say was, "What the Fierfek!"

"What's the matter Rang?"

"Bev, that should have brought the house down, if not at least half of it. Damn Cerberus knows how to survive an attack that's for sure."

Araniik pulled out his rifle, "No time to complain _vode_ we have a _vod_ to save."

Araniik and Beviin were taking point while Rang carried a crate with all of Prudii's gear. Rasen had a shotgun, while Tare cared an assault rifle. Vren had his battle armor carrying a shotgun and assault rifle. Forta also had an assault rifle but he preferred the balance of a pistol. Kix maybe a pilot but his turian military training also taught him how to use a sniper rifle and assault rifle. Nyona had commando training from Aria and some of her girls, so she could handle any weapon from this galaxy and her Biotics were ready to crush some skulls. While the smoke still covered much of the opening, they took the advantage of moving inside where they easily and quietly disposed of three injured Cerberus agents under rubble. So far the commandos were right, as the computer Forta and Rasen were hacking had control over the security and Beviin found the primary power distributor. "Guys I think we found something." Rang and Aran gathered near Rasen. She pulled up the camera feed showing a dead man next to the wall and a chair.

Rang moved in, "Let's see now, no contusions around the neck but it is turned to a perfect 120° to his left. I can guess he was grabbed around the temple regions. Boot marks on the hands suggest he was unable to defend himself before the neck was turning…Yep, definitely Prudii's handiwork. Which means there's going to be a lot of dead people here real soon."

"Now let get to him before any of them get lucky." Aran was examined the actual map of the complex; they were close in their guess minus the hidden passageway to a secret hangar, which is now buried under all of the debris Rang created. "Alright, I think we can meet Prudii around this large storage area here."

"Shutting down power to automated defenses, security and alarms. Ready to move, sir." With this power house of a team behind them, nothing was going to stop Sigma Squad in their mission to capture this base.

* * *

**A/N: **Writing for elcor sucks...The life rules are just general rules to live by both in and out of military life and they just gave the rules that Prudii was breaking in no particular order. The Cerberus agent's code name was just something I found using wikipedia because I don't know any angel names and Cerberus tends to use Christian or Catholic references. (Sorry, but I can't tell the difference) The group with the 3 commandos have armor on I'm just not going to go into detail about it.


	11. Striking back at the dog

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything to Mass Effect and Star Wars and they belong to their respected people.

**A/N: **Another long wait, sorry. Hey I recently realized that the name 'Forta' was used during the Samara loyalty mission, please note that I did not remember there was an elcor with that name when I named the batarian. Never mind that, here's the exciting invasion of the Cerberus facility and 'rescue' of Prudii...

* * *

With the map of the warehouse displayed on Aran's omni-tool, "Our next target should be their communication." The map indicated that communication was upstairs but Prudii's signal was still on ground level. "We need to split up. Bev, take three people and head up."

Beviin saluted then called names, "Sir. Forta, Kix, Rasen, let's move. Vren, if you wouldn't mind, we could use a boost." They looked at the upper level that was exposed from the Rang Special.

"Fine." Vren then moved some debris so he could get a bit higher where he waited to help them get up. First Rasen went up because she was the lightest of the group. Forta was next, followed by Kix. Vren had to remind himself that he was doing this for Prudii and his new clan to get passed his hate for turians. With Beviin upstairs, both teams prepared for combat.

Araniik still had the map on display and Prudii's tracker, "Looks like Prudii is cleaning house. We'll do the same and meet him here." Aran was pointing at a fairly large room. "This is probably where they store most of the gear and supplies."

"If not, then we'll meet one of those three headed dog thing from human stories." Another one of Rang's bad joke he purposefully made.

* * *

Beviin was now leading his team as fast as they could to what they believe to be communications. Due to Forta's hacking, with the assistance of Bev and Rasen, all omni-tool based comm. systems were down within the warehouse. They checked every room they passed to make sure they couldn't get sandwiched in the cramped hallway. So far, all they were finding were empty dorms and a closet full of cleaning equipment.

A pair of humans on patrol had just turned the corner into the hall where Bev and his team were in. Instead of opening fire, Bev ordered everyone to hide in one of the rooms. Beviin was using his HUD to track the two Cerberus operatives. He handed Kix one of his Geonosian electric force pikes and showed him how to use it without zapping himself. Now ready, the two of them waited as the Cerberus pair walked past the room the team was using. With that, Bev and Kix rushed out hitting and jabbing the two to the floor. Kix killed his human as he stabbed the pike straight through the heart. Bev didn't, instead, after stunning him, he pulled out restraints and cuffed him. "Araniik will want to 'talk' to at least one of them." Bev then threw the Cerberus into the supply closet they found and locked it from the outside. "Let's hurry. Araniik can only distract them for so long."

* * *

With a broken krogan, an asari commando, an occupied commando, and a trained quarian with no true field experience; in his opinion; Araniik had a lot of work to do in order to keep everyone alive within the Cerberus facility. This team was also checking every room they encountered. Rang was of no use as he was carrying all of Prudii's gear in a crate. Aran had Vren watch their back as he had the most experience in this kind of work. Nyona was next to him and Tare was to cover Rang if necessary, otherwise Aran told him to keep his head down.

So far so clean, with no one in any of the room and they were approaching the main storage area for the warehouse. Bev had pinged Aran's HUD telling him he had captured a prisoner so that meant no holding back when they started the fire fight and he made sure the others knew as well. "From Prudii's tracker, he should be here any minute, so let's help clear his path." With that, Aran opened the doors and four out of the five opened fire on the first targets they could find as they all took cover.

* * *

There were two Cerberus guards standing next to a door leading to communications. One of them was starting to worry, "Something's wrong, Mark and Jet should have come back by now. Should we go look for them?"

"Nah, they're probably fine. Besides if anything was wrong they would have contacted us about it…"

Suddenly their omni-tools caught a message, "…Goddamnit someone respond!" Weapon discharge and explosions can be heard in the background.

"We read you. What's your status over?"

"Two targets; the red one and the orange one have attacked the facility. Repeat the red and orange targets have infiltrated the facility and the black one is loose. No sign of the blue one but the red and orange guys have brought a small army. We are engaging in the main storage area. We do not have the location of the black one. We need reinforcements now! …Damnit suppressing fire! Suppressing fire!" Without hesitation the two of them ran off to help.

* * *

Forta deactivated his omni-tool he used to let Beviin talk to the two guards. "I can't believe they actually left. Are you sure it's OK to send more guys at your friends?"

Bev assured the batarian, "Araniik, Rang and Prudii are the best. If a hundred battle droids can't kill us then there's no way they would let a measly thirty humans kill them now. Besides they'll be getting backup soon…"

Rasen asked Bev, "So all of you commandos can change your voices with that helmet?"

"Actually only the four of us have it." Bev explained, "Long story short, we were tasked with infiltrating and destroying an enemy outpost. We destroyed a few BX droid commandos and then Rang got the creative idea to integrate their vocabulators into our suit's systems. I'll tell the rest of the story later, right now we need to take out their communications, permanently." The team advanced as fast as they could without causing too much noise. Bev pulled out two grenades, a flash-bang and a sonic detonator. Rang may have carry all of the heavy duty explosives but that didn't stop his vode from carrying around a few grenades.

Bev signaled his group to wait for the two explosives to soften up the room. Kix and Forta were at the right side of the door while Bev and Rasen were on the left. Without worrying about a lock to explode, Bev nodded to Kix to open the door and the moment the door began to open, Beviin tossed the flash-bang first. Even outside the room, Beviin still turned his head away until he heard the bang. The rest of the team got the hint as they also looked away. Before anything else could happen, Beviin lobbed the sonic detonator in. The bang was almost immediate as he ran in rifle at the ready followed by Kix, Rasen and Forta. Anyone still alive that survived the sonic detonator were still feeling the effects of the flash-bang grenade which made clearing the room that much easier. There were only five stragglers left who were close to death and four dead. They each finished one person with Bev using his knife to silence the last one. With all Cerberus agents dead, Forta locked the door, "We're in, so now what?"

"Now we terminate their communication capabilities." Beviin was working at one of the stations that looked like the primary computer. "Ah Fierfek…"

Rasen didn't like that tone in Bev's voice, "What is it Bev?"

"Looks like they've already sent out updates to another facility, they know Prudii has escaped and that we have infiltrated this outpost. They don't know how many of us there are so we still have the element of surprise." Bev had to think of something before he did anything else. "This might work," Before he sliced it into the system, he conversed with Forta and Rasen, "Do you guys think transmitting false information would work?"

Rasen had doubts, "I don't know, Bev. A group this organized might not fall for something that simple."

Forta was examining one of the desks in the room, "They probably use special codes or something to confirm identities. If we had one it might work…as the humans say, 'bingo'." Forta had found notes and an OSD marked 'ID CODE'. It wasn't that easy to find as they were buried in a cabinet under piles of useless documents and office supplies.

"Time for me to work my magic." With full access, Bev created carefully timed transmissions to be sent at predetermined times. One would confirm the 'recapture' of Prudii while the other would state that the 'invaders' have been terminated.

Just as Forta was about to open the door, Beviin turned around. "What now?"

"Just something to boost Sigma moral…" After he finished, Bev destroyed all of the computers so no one could undo what has been done. Without warning, the PA system came alive with music but it was strange. Bev had set in play a mix of four chants that he and his clone brothers learned. In order, the songs that would play are, Ka'rta Tor (One Heart of Justice), Dha Werda Verda (Rage of the Shadow Warriors), Gra'tua Cuun (Our Vengeance), and of course Vode An (Brothers All). Bev edited the four songs so they could be played together in one go.

* * *

With the unexpected music the two commandos fought with more vigor in their step. "Hey, Aran, you hear that? They're playing our songs."

"Then it's time to show everyone the pride of the Mandalorians, Rang!"

Rang slid the crate with Prudii's gear to Tare, "If anything in there gets damaged Prudii's going to kill me but before that I'll cripple you, understand?" The problem wasn't what he said but how he said it. It was in that bad joke attitude he usually has, unlike Prudii's 'evil' tone. Neither the less, Tare understood what was said and nodded to Rang. With that, Rang ran into the fray, gun a blazing.

Surprising to both Cerberus and the aliens, the two commandos were in step with the beat and were singing in unison with the song as well.

Before the first song ended, Bev and his team had arrived. Rasen had seen them act like brothers amongst each other before, but besides Rang, this is the most emotion she had ever seen them express. Now almost like berserkers, the three of them were destroying anyone in their path. Forta, Rasen and Kix joined up with Tare, Nyona and Vren. Nyona complained about the noise, "What the hell is this?"

Kix answered, "Don't know. The green guy said it was going to 'boost Sigma moral', whatever that means. Do you guys think we should help them?"

Rasen responded, "No…" she had some doubts about what she thought but she felt certain it would be the best thing to do, "they can handle them on their own now. We just need to make sure none of these Cerberus bastards leave this room alive."

"Clean up duty, huh?" Vren normally preferred a straight out fight but from his fight with Prudii he understood, "Well if they are good on their own I'd hate to fight them as a team." Vren began to move towards one of the doors in the room, "Come on Nya, and let's see if that time in the lounge rusted your fighting skills."

"I've told you not to call me that!"

Kixritvira never liked being benched in a fight but it was better than getting shot by your own team. "I guess I'll watch that door. Kid, are you coming?" He was looking at Tare'Nara. "No 'fence but I don't trust batari's with my life." Tare pushed the crate Rang had 'handed' to him to guard.

"I'm used to it. So that just leaves me and you guarding this door, Rasen." She nodded to Forta as the two of them took cover behind a few crates. They watched as the fighting continued. Doran was right, as the three commandos skillfully and almost elegantly moved from kill to kill using everything to their advantage. Rang had tossed a round grenade that exploded with a radius of about twenty meters and destroyed everything in that range and damaged anything close by. At one point Bev tossed one of his pikes at a Cerberus agent that got behind Araniik. The velocity of the pike was too slow for the shields to respond to it and it went through the weaker material around his neck. Without so much as a hint of signaling or a notice, Aran shot the man's head with one of his pistols at point blank, removing the pike from his neck and continued his assault.

In the middle of the second song, the door opposite of Rasen and Forta opened with an unarmed woman being held by the throat by Prudii. Prudii was using both the woman's body and her personal shield. In the other hand, Prudii was using a pistol he took from one of the many Cerberus agents he had killed. His clothing was tattered and his arms, legs and left cheek were cut up, from all of the fire he barely dodged. He too was singing loudly and full of pride, as Prudii continued to shot anyone that got in his way. With only a dozen or so Cerberus members left the four commandos were tearing through them like varrens at a slab of meat. One after another, Cerberus agents fall until all that was left was the four of them and Prudii's prisoner. As the music was ending the four commandos, still singing, moved towards each other. "Dha Werda Verda a'den tratu, Coruscanta kandosii adu. Duum motir ca'tra nau tracinya. Gra'tua cuun hett su dralshy'a." '_We are the rage of The Warriors of the Shadow, The first noble sons of Coruscant. Let all those who stand before us light the night sky in flame. Our vengeance burns brighter still.' _With their left arms, except for Prudii who used his right arm and didn't have his armor, extended their vibroblades to make a square and grunted with the end of the song.

Despite the next song just started playing, the four of them behaved as if there was silence. Araniik signaled the others to gather as he began shouting to his vode through their helmets, "Sigma Squad, sound off! Body count!"

Beviin reported, "Two downed in the hallways, one killed, the other waiting for questioning. Nine in the communication room, five were clean up. Personally downed four out here."

The only reason Prudii answered, even without his helmet, was because he knew that a body count would be important in a place like this. "…one interrogator, fifteen guards, eight techs, one hostage. Revenge kills, all but her. Another four from this location…"

Rang answered, "Let me thing…twelve most from my special entrance, then another… six after the song started playing."

"I took down nine." With the rest of the team finally together again, Aran asked them, "How many did you guys kill here?"

Vren spoke first, "I blasted four before that music started playing."

"Three for me, that noise were annoying."

Vren was starting to see the cultural similarities between the krogan and those four, "I guess you can't appreciate real music after living in that club Nya." Nyona started glowing blue as she looked at Vren with nothing but contempt.

Nervously, Tare said his count, "I was able to bring down three…with Rang's help, sir."

Rang slapped his back, "'Coarse you did buddy! I played decoy and you shot down any moles stupid enough to pop their heads out. You're a hell of a shot, especial for your first operation with us…and if you can't tell, that was a complement."

"Oh! Hang on…" Tare moved the crate forward, "This is all of your gear Prudii."

"Hey wait up," Beviin stopped him, "Prudii, did they take all of your 'dummy' gear, right?"

"Yeah, just like you thought." He handed Bev his 'shield' and started to don his gear. _Never thought I'd miss being under all of this._

"Sir, we need to verify that was all of the Cerberus here otherwise we'll have a bigger fight on our hands…most likely in their favor." Hearing Bev's dilemma, Prudii tossed him a card. "What's this?"

"Picked up from one of the _laandure_. You or someone might find a way to use it." The blood covered card once belonged to a Mr. Charles D. Renner, who had top cleanse at this base. "When you're done tell me. _Mando'ad draar digu_, a Mandalorian never forgets. I still have to kill her to fulfill _ner gra'tua_."

Beviin pulled out another set of restrains and cuffed the woman's arms behind her. After he finished, Bev tossed the ID card, "Rasen, catch. Check the number of personnel to our kills so far. Kix, Forta go with Rasen and watch over her while she works."

"More orders huh? Whatever…"After Kix's complained, the three of them went to find a functioning console while looking out for any Cerberus operatives they might have missed.

"Sir, I'm going to go through their inventory to see what's valuable here."

Before Beviin could leave, Nyona moved towards him, "I'm going too. You'll need someone to appraise their values so that damn elcor doesn't rip us off or something." Bev nodded and they started looking through all of the crates and containers.

"Vren, Tare and I are going see if there are any spoils worth taking."

Vren looked at the woman, "What about her? Are we not going to ask her questions?"

Rang playfully replied, "Don't worry, by the time you two or Bev and the blue hotty come back, she'll be dead."

Vren couldn't tell if he should have taken that seriously or what but with Prudii nearby there was no way for her to escape…alive.

Rang was just waiting for Tare be far enough not to hear the screaming or to see what's going to happen. "OK, now that everyone is gone, let's start talking." She spit at his helmet. "That's…real _original_." Wiping the spit from his helmet and flicking it off of his hand. "Listen, I not promising that you'll live after this but…well, he could make your death more painful by about a few minutes…"

"I was trained by Cerberus…"

"And look what that's got you so far. We busted in, kicked ass and are claiming the spoils of battle. Not only did your people lose to use but an escaped prisoner who didn't even have a shield, armor or a weapon and even then he kicked your guys' asses. My teacher always had a saying she would constantly tell us, 'The weapon doesn't determine how deadly we are, our training and our personalities do.'" He walked away from her, "Look we really don't need you or anything, 'cause we got one of your friends tied up waiting for us. Soon as I give the word, my friend here will end it for you, probably painfully. But if you are willing to give us some information then I think I can ask nicely to do it painlessly. What do you say?"

"What do I say? I say this…" She tried to give Prudii an unexpected roundhouse kick, only to be caught by the ankle before the strike could hit. The woman then struggled to get her leg free but Prudii's grip was too tight. Instead of just tossing her to the floor, Prudii struck her kneecap, shattering it. The woman screamed loudly but Araniik and Beviin just told the other to ignore it.

"See, now that's what I was trying to avoid. I'm only a medic and you're my enemy, so painkillers and minimal first aid are as far as I can go as to helping you." With his omni-tool, Rang applied painkillers to the broken knee. It helped but without proper treatment she'd never be able to use the leg again, not that it really matters if Prudii has anything to say about it. "One more time, are you going to answer my questions?"

Even in pain she still answered him, "Go…go to hell…"

"I'm sorry it has to come to this…" Rang nodded to Prudii as he turned away and his helmet muted the surrounding noise. The woman was sitting up when Rang nodded. Prudii extended both knuckle blades as he stabbed her in the neck and back. The pain was excruciating but it would not last long, as Prudii twisted the blades from being parallel to her spine to perpendicular and pushing them in further. The blades were in for about three seconds before Prudii pulled them out. The woman's body fell lifeless to the ground. Rang checked her pulse and a few other thing with his omni-tool to make sure she was dead before removing the cuffs. "Satisfied, Prudii?" Prudii simply nodded as he cleaned the blades of blood and spinal fluid.

* * *

**A/N: **I think I know what your thinking, "How could Prudii do such a thing to an unarmed prisioner?" but really that was payback for letting himself to be captured and she was with the team that did the capturing. It's mostly a pride thing that's why. The door scene with Bev's team, location was if you were looking at the door left, right. Next time you get to read the other painful deaths Prudii caused.

**Mandalorian Translation: **Not translating the song lines down here.

laandure(LAHN-doo-er-ay)- weaklings

ner gra'tua(nair gra-TOO-ah)- my vengeance


	12. The daring escape and clean up

**A/N: **Thank you Night Hunter MGS for spotting my mistake of the repeat chapter. I have promptly deleted said repeat. I have had a few personal doubts about this chapter and about how you readers would react but I had to slap myself in the face and remind myself what I told you guys in the first chapter(I think, paraphrased), "This is my story and I don't care if you complain without reason". Now let's fill in a few holes and wrap up this little event at the Cerberus warehouse…(Warning: some actions by Prudii my be considered extreme and or inhumane, please turn off your imaginations for that section or skip it…You have been warned.)

* * *

As Forta, Kixritvira, and Rasen searched for a working terminal that was connected to the base's database, Forta couldn't help but comment to his quarian companion, "Those guys really seem to only trust you and the other quarian guy."

"Don't take it personally, they are a very…tight knit group…" What else could she say? Even she didn't know much about them beside them being brothers, "and they helped me save my home ship."

"At least they show something of respect for us." Kixritvira couldn't help adding as he remembered some of his drill sergeants from the past. After about a minute of traveling they heard the cries of a woman. "What the hell did they do?" Kix asked.

Rasen was taken back when she first saw Sigma Squad fight, she didn't want to imagine what had just happened, "Probably best if we don't know. Come on, we have a job to do and they expect it to be done."

As the three of them continued, they proceeded like when they were with Beviin. They eventually came across an area littered with bodies and marks from weapons fire. In particular there were four bodies that were damaged beyond gun fire; crushed bones, dislocated or twisted limbs, and fingers and toes cut off. Forta could not stop himself when he asked, "One man did all of this?"

"Damn. Surprise attack or not, turian commandos would have lost at least one person killing this many humans and that guy didn't even have a shield?"

"He and Sigma Squad are the best at what they do." Rasen was looking around the room, "There," she pointed at the remains of a security camera, "Prudii probably shot that after he killed everyone here." Rasen went to one of the nearby computer consoles. The terminal was still logged in and after entering the codes on the ID card she had full access. Rasen found a closed security system that contained videos of Prudii's escape.

* * *

They watched Prudii kill his interrogator, after they heard the explosion of their entrance from the video. The two guards at the door were looking around when they heard the door bang three times. One of them entered only to be greeted by Prudii's fists. The man fell unconscious then the second guard opened fire at Prudii but he moved too fast for him to keep up as he delivered a heavy jab to the gut. With both of them downed, Prudii searched them to find anything of use, he did, grabbing both pistols and an assault rifle. Prudii then snapped the neck of one of the guards then proceeded to shot the same guard point blank in the head. Prudii then grabbed the other guard by the back of the neck, after removing all weapons on him, and continued on.

The next area was where Rasen, Kix, and Forta were in but the technicians and security forces were preparing to leave when around the corner the guard from before showed up. One of the security guards moved to get a closer look. The guard from before moved back and before the other security guard could look around the corner for the other man, his head exploded. With one hand, Prudii carried the guard in front of him as a shield while shooting at the others. He first focused on the security forces with armor. The next guard was a test for him as Prudii shot at him nine times. After about seven shots his shields were downed and the other two rounds hit non-vital areas. Now that Prudii had a number to work off of, he was going to have an easier time taking them down. He finished his test guard with a well-placed shot between the eyes then targeted the next guard. Some of the techs had retreated to other rooms but that wasn't going to save them from Prudii.

Prudii displayed his incredible marksmanship against the guards, as he brought them down after eight shots, seven to take out the shields and one more through the skull. After killing another guard, Prudii had to eject the thermal clip. Instead of reloading it, Prudii threw the pistol at them and pulled out the other one. He killed another guard but the next guard he targeted, Prudii didn't kill him. Instead, he took down the shields, and then shot him in each limb to the point where he could not defend himself or retreat. A security guard tried to help him but Prudii gunned him down before he could do anything. The Cerberus people tried to get around his 'shield' but Prudii was using the wall to his advantage, covering his blind spots and unprotected back. Some of the shots were nicking his arms and legs but Prudii just ignored the pain as if they didn't happen. Whenever they saw his eyes, they could see the blood lust in them, even if the rest of Prudii's face didn't express it, his eyes were. Prudii had to reload again but instead of tossing the weapon Prudii moved towards one of the Cerberus guards.

Reaching him, Prudii snapped the neck of his shield and tossed him onto the unsuspecting guard. It took the man a few seconds but during his struggle to get back up, Prudii had already reloaded the pistol and was behind the man. Prudii made quick strikes to nerve points that cause the man to let go of his weapon. Prudii then grabbed the pistol and removed his other weapons, just like before. Even with a few extra hundred pounds, Prudii was moving quickly to the man he had subdued earlier. Instead of just simply killing him off, Prudii stepped on the downed man's hand crushing every bone he could with his foot. Prudii took the time to kill another Cerberus guard before he crushed his other hand. Most would have just ended his life then and there, but Prudii had other plans in mind. He grabbed one of the man's arms and forcefully twisted it to the point where he could not use it. Prudii then did the same thing to his other arm. He then stepped on the man's neck squeezing it slowly. The man could not use his hands as they were destroyed and Prudii continued to do that for about a minute before finally crushing his neck.

Prudii knew the count to bring their shields down and cover was scarce. He brought down four more guard before he injured another one. There was no way to save her, as the Cerberus woman was in the open and the last guard still attempted to help her, only for Prudii to gun him down before he could apply the medi-gel. Prudii knocked out his 'shield' and threw him to the floor. Prudii crushed her hands just like the man before, but not having to worry about someone shooting at him; Prudii also crushed her hip and dislocating both legs. He threw her on her back, then pulled out a small metal dart. The dart was concealed in a secret compartment under his shoe, wrapped up carefully and even Prudii was treating it with care. He stepped on her neck but Prudii wasn't going to break her like the other man, instead he wet the sharp tip, careful not to touch it himself, and a small droplet fell from the dart onto her tongue. Prudii put the dart back cautiously then he grabbed his living shield. The woman was in agony for about five seconds but then she fell silent.

Now he moved on to the techs, the first door he entered had just three men and were easily put down by Prudii, closing the distance and shooting them at point blank. The next room was prepared for him, lights were off and weapons at the ready, but when the door opened, instead of Prudii, they had gunned down the guard he was using. Like his name, Prudii struck from the shadows killing the first man with his fists then put a clean shot through the next person. With close to godlike, speed he ran up to the other one and dislocated the arms then the legs. After, Prudii bent the elbows and knees opposite to their natural bend. He left the person like that for some time before ending it.

The last room was fully lit and the five of them had shields. The door opened but nothing was there. In a surprise, Prudii had switched to the assault rifle and shot down one of the techs before he moved out of their sights again. He took a few hits but nothing that was going to slow him down. Prudii moaned like he was in pain and one of the Cerberus walked out to check. Right when he reached the doorway, Prudii was waiting from him above it. He dropped himself down to grab the technician's head and twisted it around before retracting back up. The last three ran out to try and get to him before he could get away but somehow they were too late. Unfortunate for them, Prudii had picked up one of the dead guard's sniper rifle and he made a clean kill with it. Before the last two could get a bead on him, Prudii ran to both of them and pinched their nerve in the neck causing them to lose consciousness.

Prudii then tied them up to look through the dead. He dropped the assault and sniper rifles and grabbed another pair of pistols. Looking through the techs he found an ID card that he stashed in one of his pant pockets. He grabbed one of his victims and removed his shoes. Prudii had created a makeshift blade from broken pieces of armor lying around. Prudii rudely woke his captive by slicing off all of his left foot's toes. He had medi-gels he grabbed from the guards so this one wouldn't die from blood loss. Prudii continued his operation on the other foot. For the hands, Prudii unfortunately, cut the fingers off one by one. After the last digit was removed, Prudii forced the crude blade though the man's eye to reach the brain, where he then angled it to sever the cerebellum which, after applying the right amount of force, it did. Prudii cleaned off his hands and used the medi-gels on himself before grabbing the woman. Her weapons were already relived as Prudii untied her and dislocated her shoulders. He noticed the camera, and then shot it down leaving the screen blank.

* * *

Rasen had turned away many times during the recordings, even Forta and Kix had to look away a few times when Prudii preformed his cruel acts. "Was that even human?"

"He's worst then a goddamn krogan!" Kix was able to say that without fearing a beating from Vren.

Now Rasen was starting to feel unsecured about them but she tried to shake all of that out of her mind, _Come on Rasen, they helped fix the Idenna and save her from Cerberus, not to mention saving my life and Captain Mal's. No, there has to be good a reason here._ She downloaded the video files to ask them about it later. Then she found a list of agents assigned to this group. "Guys, this is Rasen," her omni-tool was patched to Sigma Squad's 'public' helmet channels; one of the few channels Forta wasn't jamming. "I've got the info you guys wanted. Apparently this is merely a cell called…Angels. They are responsible for retrieving and sending any items, or persons-of-interest, to Cerberus. Looks like most people usually end up dead before they send them. I'm looking at a list of staff…they have eighty-eight personnel assigned to this cell. Wait it seems that they lost seven of them at the Citadel and haven't replaced them yet."

"Irony is written all over this one vode and don't say it's not." Rang was hoping this would happen, "It seems that the group that tried to shadow us on the Citadel, we end up killing the rest of their team in their own base. As one of the Jedi Generals would say, 'there is no such thing as coincidences'." Rang said it with a pompous older sounding voice. Prudii agreed and knuckle bumped with him.

"Hang on a sec guys…" She made sure what she saw was accurate, "These 'Angels', as they called themselves, planned to send Prudii with some Prothean relic a week from now after they 'asked' him some questions."

"Too bad for them, Prudii wouldn't crack after a year of torture." Rang would have said it a bit differently were it not for the fact that he was trying not to upset Prudii for the time being.

"If the records are correct then it should be hiding amongst the crates we fought around."

Rang buzzed in with his usual sarcasm before Aran could say anything else, "No need to say it Aran, me and Prudii get the exciting job of finding ancient tech we have no clue what it will do to us or what it even looks like."

"When we get back to the ship, I want to have a chat with you guys…" Rasen was starting to feel less comfortable around them now but if she wanted to get past that, she was going to have to face them. Rasen turned to Kix and Forta, "Come on, let get back…I don't want to be here right now…"

* * *

Rang and Prudii were opening any crate they could find. After opening about twenty crates they found weapons, deactivate mechs, piles of thermal clips, ship parts, medical supplies, even a dead turian but nothing resembling ancient tech. "You'd think these _di'kute_ would label their stuff." Rang kicked open a crate, "More mechs, what about you vod? What've you found?"

"_Beskar'game, tebec_…" The bangs from crate doors falling and opening continued for about a minute when Prudii found something unusual. He called his _vod_, "Rang, I think I found it."

Working his way to Prudii, it took about a minute for him to reach the high crate. "Damn the stacking sucks!" He turned his attention to the relic, "Well this looks interesting…"

"What is it?"

Rang picked up the round silver ball, "First impression I'd had said a bomb, but looking at it for a while I'd have to guess it was some sort of data storage device. Kinda like one of them Jedi Holocrons. The thing is just a big round paper weight if we can't find a way to access the data. I say we keep the darn thing out of Cerberus' paws." Prudii nodded in agreement. Rang then placed the device in Prudii's pack, "Aran, this is Rang. We've secured the relic and will rendezvous with you shortly."

"I read you, Rang. We're almost done here. Bev If you're done, I plan on seeing your prisoner soon and I'd like you to take me there."

"Yes sir."

* * *

Vren, Nyona, Tare and Sigma Squad gathered at the supply closet waiting for Beviin to unlock it. The door opened and the man fell to the floor after trying to stand up against the door. Aran put his boot on the man's back, "Let's skip the small talk, now where is this 'Illusive Man' of yours hiding?"

The man's eyes opened wide, "How do you know that?"

"We know a lot more then you think. Now start talking before you start braking…" Aran started to apply more pressure onto the man's back.

The man, though in pain, was laughing, "Fools," he continued, "He's watching you as we speak…"

Beviin interjected, "Impossible. I disabled all surveillance devices in this facility."

He corrected him, "No, not those. Through me…" Beviin activated his omni-tool and found what he was talking about and informed his brothers, ocular implants. "There's no way for you to follow the signal…"

"Are you sure that it's not feeding to one of those fake out reality shows. 'Cause I loved this one episode where they made this giant mecha Krayt Dragon head and they scared these dudes…" Rang looked at the others, "Right, sorry couldn't help it…"

"You guys are dead now. There's nowhere for you four to hide where he can't find you. Cerberus will obtain your technology and…"

Aran kicked the man's face, and then grabbed his head, "Well if your illusive friend is watching, then I can tell him we'd better not cross paths again."

His face was being squeezed by Aran's hand, "Why…why not?"

Aran turned the man's head towards Rang, "'Cause you, my friend, are looking at four very special and very classified Spectres." Nyona, Vren, Tare and the Cerberus man faces' were filled with shock at that bit of unforeseen news.

"You're telling me I'm working for a bunch of Council puppets!" Vren was very upset after hearing that.

"We'll explain everything to you guys at the ship, but as for you…" Araniik threw the man to the wall. Now all four members of Sigma Squad were in his sight, "Come for us again, Illusive Man, and we will hunt and kill you and every one of your agents." Araniik pulled out his ACP Repeater and rest it above the man's left eye where the shield would not stop the shot, "_Ke nu jurkad sha Mando'ade, burc'ya_!" He pulled the trigger scrambling the man's brain and walked away. Araniik got what he wanted from the man even if he didn't say it directly; _This Illusive Man is a coward who uses his people to do all of the work for him; just like most of the Separatist leaders. But he isn't afraid of doing the terrible things sometimes needed to be done._ "Bev, did you guys get your assessment on the supplies here?"

"We have enough of one, sir. Ready on your order, Araniik."

"Good, then let's get as far as we can from Omega, for now." Araniik radioed the others, "Rasen, Kix, Forta, meet us at the X3Ms. We're leaving."

* * *

The Illusive Man patted his cigarette into an ash tray, as he replayed the close encounter with Sigma Squad. In particular, he watched the scene where Araniik spoke an alien language and fired the strange weapon. "It looks like we'll be dancing on eggshells if your information proves to be accurate."

The dark haired woman walked up behind the Illusive Man, "Are you planning on sending another cell after them?"

"That won't be necessary." The Illusive Man blew a cloud of smoke, "They have proven to be the better team. For now we will just monitor them. We'll find a way to use their talents for our advantage soon, but I don't want them to threaten the other projects, especial Lazarus. There is too much at stake…"

* * *

They returned to Banthar, "Excited Greetings: Welcome back. I assume the warehouse has been cleaned."

"We cleared it. You can send your workers to start collecting."

"Exhilarated: Now I will be glad to give you a twenty-five percent discount on all of my wares…"

Nyona stopped him, "Twenty-five percent! That warehouse has billions of credits worth stored in there! Unless you want Aria's wrath for not sharing this treasure trove, I suggest you give them forty-five at least!"

The elcor coward slightly, "Terrified Answer: Of course. What was I thinking? All purchases from my store will be forty-five percent off the marketed price. Is there anything you wish to purchase?"

Aran replied before anyone could say anything. "No, we'll be returning to our ship now. I'm sure some of us want to talk about recent events." Araniik was looking back at Rasen and Vren specifically.

Banthar bowed his head down, "Of course. Courteously: Please return soon valued customers."

* * *

After they loaded the boxes full of supplies they filled from the Cerberus facility, Vren had it at them first, "I thought I was joining a group of warriors, but instead I learn I'm working for a bunch of lapdogs! It is true that anyone who holds the title of Spectre are worthy opposites but they serve the Citadel Council…"

Aran explained, "It's true we are Spectres, but only the Council, and currently everyone onboard, knows that. Our 'joining' is strictly confidential. We chose the missions we want to do, and in the mean time we will live our lives as mercs for hire."

Rang added, "And if that doesn't work out we could always move into the spy busi."

Kix wasn't sure about the sound of that, "So what do you do for them then?"

Aran responded, "Whatever missions we chose. If you don't want to help that's fine but if you plan on being with us, then that means joining our clan and following our rules."

In the back of his mind Vren was excited to be a part of a clan once more but even though they are similar, they were still different. "For now, you have my respect but it will take a lot more to gain my trust…"

"We never said we wanted it easy from a krogan." Aran's response showed to Vren that they just might truly understand the warrior's path. Araniik now turned to their longest companion, "Rasen, what was it you wanted to talk to us about?"

Rasen handed Araniik an OSD, "It's about this…" Sigma Squad could hear the nervousness hidden in her voice and that slight twitchy thing she does with her toes when she's not occupying herself with work.

They watched the video of Prudii's escape and the whole time none of them twitched or looked away. After it was over, Rang turned to Prudii, "I would have thought you would have used that blade trick _buir_ taught us?"

Prudii nonchalantly answered, "No blade or shield…"

"Right, forget I thought about it…"

Rasen was upset, "That's it? That's all you have to say about that? He tortured them for no reason!"

"No reason? Why show them mercy? They attacked your ship, probably done horrible experiments on others, forced me to break several personal codes to allow capture…no, there were reasons, some harder to understand then others…"

Vren understood and added, "You quarians wouldn't understand the rage of a warrior. Some of the reasons are similar to why we krogans hate turians and salarians so much."

Kix couldn't help but add, "Yeah, because we beat you during the Krogan Rebellions."

Vren confronted Kix, "No, because you would rather see us die a slow genocide rather than face us on the front line!"

Even with that, Aran knew what she was trying to say, "Alright Rasen, we won't torture anyone like that ever again. Is that fair; we'll put them down, as painless as possible." Aran looked at Prudii, as he gave a grunt to Aran. Rasen nodded at Aran not saying a word. "Now that that's over with, we all need to talk. If we are going to be working together, then we need to know each other and trust each other both on and off the battlefield."

Sigma Squad told their tales; parts of their training on Kamino, Day One on Geonosis and how they got there. No one was unaffected by these shocking revelations. Rang tried to simplify it all after everything was said, "So to put it simply; we are biologically somewhere between mid-twenties to late thirties but are actually only eleven years old, have no social skills with people who don't share our face or culture, were not expected to survive the end of our war, and we accidentally ended up in this galaxy. Now any questions?"

* * *

**A/N: **The pistol ammo count is based on the M-4 Shuriken and assuming that thermal clips have been incorporated into weapons at this time; to defend myself for the single shot from this pistol model I sight the renegade interrupt during the Kasumi Loyalty Mission and cinematic trailer. Yes that was like a Kamino saberdart, but had poison in the dart as well as lased with a dried poison that retains its potency after making contact with a liquid(forgot the name of the poison will research again). I think the Illusive Man scene was a bit too short but it works relatively speaking, I think. Also, some might argue that Sigma Squad wouldn't revile their status to TIM like that but in a ways it is like kick in the groin for Cerberus and Aran's telling TIM they would kill all of the Cerberus personal was a promise not a threat plus it get Cerberus to back off for the time being. Besides they were going to have to revile that to their team anyway Rang just wanted to have the fun with it and turn it into a big scene. Sigma Squad wouldn't tell anything classified about the Republic, they're not traitors and they know how to keep secrets; especially because of Order 66. The crates are similar to the ones seen during the Garrus Loyalty Mission and when we find the Hammerhead. The next few chapters are going to be nothing but backstories about Sigma Squad's crewmembers. I need a few opinions soon to address Rocketfist's concern; should I just sum up the 2 years between ME 1 and 2 in a few paragraphs and move to Freedom's Progress or should I go into details about a few key events that could be played out in either time (If I have enough time to think about it. Sorry about the wait and long note down here.)

**Mandalorian Translations:** di'kut(DEE-koot)- idot

Beskar'gam(BES-kar-GAM)- armor

tebec(TEH-bek)- ammunition

Ke nu jurkad sha Mando'ade, burc'ya!- Don't mess with the Mandalos, mate! (lit: Don't wave your saber at Mandalorians, mate!)


	13. Stories of the past

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything related to Mass Effect or Star Wars and they belong to their respected people.

**A/N: **I'm doing a special 2 chapter post this time. 1: because of how long I've been since I last updated 2: like I said in the last chapter, personal hesitation but the story must go on(don't comment about this bad spinoff pun) and 3: because of news that Delta Squad has been confirmed to having an appearance on the Clone Wars cartoon(I stress cartoon as it is CG) series working with Jedi Obi-Wan, and Adi Gallia at least very least. Here I also add a story of Delta and Sigma working together.

For those who jump to the last chapter looking for updates, no this has been here for a few days. The update is chapter 4 with an, accidentally, deleted chapter.

* * *

Rasen had to ask, "Are their others like you four?"

Beviin answered, "There are many commando teams doing various operations across our galaxy. One of the more famous teams is Delta Squad."

"What makes them so famous and not you guys?" Kix asked with a condescending attitude.

"Finesse my turian friend, finesse." Rang continued, "We get the job done and no one knows about it until it's too late, when Delta gets the job done they tend to leave their mark…"

"Like that hole you left at that the Cerberus base?"

"Hey, hey now we disabled most of their security and left very little evidence that we were there, Kix. Delta could have done it to, but with more fighting, after all they do have a psycho on their team."

Prudii answered who before it was asked, "Delta RC-1207. Sev. Sniper specialist. Likes to kill." With his omni-tool he displayed a photo of Delta Squad together before they left Geonosis, after the battle was won. "The red one."

Tare was unnerved at the sight, "Is…is that blood?"

"Nobody other than Sev knows, but rumors about that has had its round amongst the troopers though." Araniik responded.

"See we're more 'cloak and dagger', while Delta Squad's one big steamroller. We both can do the job it just depends on how much property damage and death you want and how it is executed." Rang had to add, "But, like others, I think Sev's tank was spiked during embryonic development, there is no way any of us should be as sadistic as him, no matter how you mess with the genes or the training we went through, cause the four of us went through similar training and Prudii is as close to Sev as anyone could get."

Sigma Squad was starting to peak Nyona's curiosity, "So have you guys ever worked with these Delta guys?"

Bev answered, "We only worked with them once. It was a covert mission on Castell. Rasen remember that story I owed you, the tale about how we added audio augmentation to our suits. About a month or so before we arrived, we were assigned to soften Castell's defenses for the invasion forces, along with Delta Squad. We Commandos can get very…competitive…amongst Squads."

Rang laughed, "That's putting it mildly. Before the mission, we all made bets on which squad could complete their objectives fastest and who could get the most kills. But between me and Sev, we both made the same vow; both of us would reach a personal and squads kill count of 4,982 for every commando lost on G-Day before the end of our war," Rang was serious for that moment before returning to his laid-back self. "But can't really continue now that there no droids here, but I think we can manage. The team was close, 3,821 active droids, and 627 organics, and that's without knowing what Prudii has killed, but with his, it's probably closer or over the mark."

"Anyway," Bev continued, "the squads were dropped off at opposite sides of the enemy base. We were not to let the enemy know we were ever there."

Rang then added to the mission brief, "Minus the craters that we were going to leave for the Seppies, mind you."

Aran ran down the mission, "So we couldn't just blast our way in. Both teams ran into a situation, the security was heavy and tight, and we couldn't do anything without compromising the mission."

"I'm sure Delta Squad could have found a way in but we called a temporary pause for our game." Rang added his two cents again.

Aran continued, "We lucked out and ambushed a patrol of commando droids without alerting the base."

"They were mostly intact so I said, 'Hey why don't we bluff our way in with that voice changer these guys have?' Bev was worried about if they questioned us, so I suggested we bring a few of their heads and hands to 'prove' we were them. It took a minute but our genius here integrated the vocabulators into our suits just fine."

Aran was laughing as he remembered the mission, "We literally walked in through the front door, fooling the clankers stationed there, made our way to the security control room and shut down the security to the entire base. Both teams completed the mission…"

Rang butted in again, "And won half of the bet for completing our objectives fastest. We could have won most kill if Prudii here was willing to tell us…"

Aran finished, "Resulting in the successful invasion and capture of the planet Castell. That was a clean assignment, relatively speaking."

Vren asked, "If that was a good mission, then what's a bad mission?"

"For me," Aran looked back towards his brothers, "I'd have to say a scenario where we couldn't complete our mission, or where we all die."

Rang asked, "You mean like the guys from Theta Squadron? That was a mess…an escort mission gone screw when their escortie turns out to be a traitor working for the Seppies and all but two died on the planet, I heard the pilot died soon after. Poor Zag, having to watch his team die like that, I hope he can found some comfort with that new squad he's in, Aiwha I think…"

* * *

After all questions about Sigma Squad were satisfied, Vren got up from his seat, "I guess it's my turn to talk, you guys have earned my respect as warriors but I still don't like that you're Spectres. I am Torg Vren, part of Clan Torg the best melee combatants found on Tuchanka. At least I was, until my clan was destroyed by Clan Ganar. On Tuchanka, I forget his name now, but an Urdnot tribe leader was trying to unify other clans, to replenish our numbers as a species. But a warlord was trying to get the tribes to continue fighting. I supported the Urdnot, but many in my clan just wanted to fight. The two leaders had a Crush and I heard things didn't go to well. I left because most of Clan Torg supported the warlord and I was certain that I would have been killed or forced to kill my clan mates. That was about three centuries ago and I've been working the mercenary angle all of that time. I am over seven hundred years old. I eventually returned to Omega, after a big score to drop some credits and lose myself for a few weeks in drinks. Right when I docked, I receive a message telling me that my clan was one of many destroyed and absorbed into Clan Ganar. That was about eight years ago."

Forta was confused, "What the hell kept you here then?"

"I tried to get the best gear I could find to take on the Ganar Clan. So, I started gambling to try and speed things along. I eventually started drinking too. I got stupid when I got drunk. So I wind up losing my ship and all of my credits. I could do nothing here except bash head but that wouldn't satisfy me for long. With all of the salvage lining around, I took it upon myself to learn how to build things, automated guns mostly but I learned a thing or two about other systems. I started to get real damn go at it too. One day, a bunch of Blood Pack started to scoff at me behind my back and after I beat some sense into them I learn why, Clan Ganar was one of the founding krogan clans of the Blood Pack. Before I know it, more Blood Pack began to point and laugh at a clanless and would leave with a broken face or two. I soon made a business deal with Omega's Blue Suns, I would sell exclusively to them my creations, in exchange they promise to kill as many Blood Pack as they could, not including the vorcha. Truthfully I could have been selling my stuff to Aria for all I cared; I just wanted a lot of dead Blood Pack. The only reason I'm here with any of you is to finally leave this shit hole and one day, I might be able to truly call myself a krogan again."

Aran bowed to Vren, "I'm glad you've joined us. Hopefully joining our clan will help you…"

Vren stopped him, "I can't just join an alien clan, I need to join a krogan clan one day. I'm thankful that you're willing to let me join. I just might be able to overlook the fact that you guys are Spectres one day…" he said with a grin on his face.

Kix decided he would go next, "Nice tale krogan. Now my tale isn't as sappy as his but here goes. My name is Kixritvira Varknar; parents disowned me after I was kicked out of the turian military, so it's just Kixritvira or Kix. First my face, if you haven't noticed, I'm a bareface. Not because I didn't want any of those tattoos on my face…"

_'Ha! I knew it was ink!'_ Rang thought to himself.

"…but because I wasn't born on a world. See, I had the unfortunate luck of hatching while on transit to a turian colony. I'm not superstitious, neither were my parents, but some would call my hatching a bad omen. I grew up hearing tales of how my father and I are descendants of an amazing fighter pilot from the Krogan Rebellions. Soon enough my father made a name for himself during the Relay 314 Incident with the humans. Like any turian, I joined the military as soon as I was able. Before I left, my father taught me about fighter combat, the difference between fighting in vacuum and in an atmosphere. I followed in my family's footsteps and joined the fighter academy. On my free time I studied various combats the turian fleet had engaged and some of it I didn't like, stupid if not suicidal formations, orders not being relayed fast enough or just plain inefficient. When they started to throw us in the simulators, everyone was expecting me to follow my orders to the letter and rank top of my class like my father and his father before him. Not to disappoint, but I did rank top in my class but I broke so many regulations, if it was actual combat the Turian Hierarchs themselves might have thought about throwing me into a cell. I continued to out due everyone, instructors included, but I always did things my way, which made a lot of people angry."

"Sound like a pair we know, sir."

"I couldn't agree more Bev…" Aran and Bev were looking at Rang and Prudii, and they knew it. Aran wanted to clarify so he knows what he was dealing with, "So you didn't follow any order you were ever given?"

Kix replied. "I don't follow stupid orders that will get me or anyone else killed intentionally. They also labeled me as lazy. I take missions seriously but during my down time…is it so bad to take a nap during down time?"

Bev argued, "That depends on if it was on your own time or during training, turian."

"I had finished the practice early and I had some time to kill." Kix continued his tale, "I eventually graduate and earn my wings, somehow. My first and only official mission with the turian military, we were hitting a batarian pirate gang. When we attacked, I was to draw their attention with the other fighters so the main forces could board the flag ship. I had no problem with it that far but then I noticed some of the pirates started to take aim at the ship that boarded theirs. I took them out then I started attacking the batarian ship our forces planned to invade. My commander yelled at me to get back to doing my job but I just ignored him and destroyed all of the turrets I could. The commander even threatened to have me thrown back to basic. Then I saw an opening with one of the other pirate ships and I took it. I managed to destroy the enemy frigate with a lone fighter, barely, but I was still called insubordinate for not continuing as per the mission objectives, even though they were still achieved and I saved at least six pilots. Well I guess I had pissed off enough people that they decided to dishonorably discharge me for being, as they put it, 'an undisciplined individual that endangers the lives of others and the mission', a polite and political way of just saying, 'an idiot who never listens to orders and compromises missions'."

Rang was confused, "Wait, so they kicked you out of the military because you took down an enemy frigate on your own? What kind of military is that?"

Kix laughed, "That's turian military for yea'. A 'good turian' will follow a bad order, even if he or she has complaints, they still go through with it. After being dishonorably discharged my family cut all their ties to me, so I tried to do odd-jobs to make a living. One day I finally arrive here but I guess word spread from the turian military and soon no one wanted to hire me to fly for them or anything. I guess I left too much of a mark at the academy"

Vren commented, "What the hell did you do that got them that pissed?"

Kix shrugged, "Oh nothing special; overloaded a few simulators, crashed a few practice fighters; not me, my opponents and they lived; caused a mess during some admiral's visit. The list just gets duller after that one. I know what a ship can do after flying it a few time, I may take risks but not without a reason or cause to do so. I was with the Blue Suns for a bit to earn cred but I left soon after, some of the guys there aren't exactly sane. So that's my life story, all downhill after that one mission."

Rang included, "And if you ever do something harebrained like that with us, I'll slap a medal on you. Prudii might smack you upside the head."

"Seriously though," Aran then turned threatening, "do anything to endanger anyone, my _vode_ or anyone else, I'll personally see to it that you take a long walk out that airlock."

"Got it; don't scare anyone, keep everyone alive."

Forta was still in his seat when he started talking, "Well I might as well talk next. Mine's short anyway. Name's Forta. Don't remember a surname, don't care. Parents were originally from the batarian homeworld, why they left I never asked. I assume they were slaves or captives or something along those lines. Somehow they ended up on Omega together and conceive me. They raised me right though; taught never hit a woman, have manners towards other even if they don't deserve it, things you wouldn't expect here. By the time I was 'bout fifteen, I was starting to show a knack for electronics, so the Blue Suns tried to approach me. I respectfully declined. About a year later, my parents died, an accident at the docks. And no the Blue Suns had nothing to do with it, which I find out a bit too late. I was young, angry, and stupid so I hack into the entire network of Omega, shutting down every firewall and security system in my way to find the video of my parents. Nothing. No Blue Suns, no explosions, no weapons fire, just an unsecured cable that snapped. After that, I did side gigs with the Blue Suns and Eclipse and when they found out I worked with the other, that when holes were put through my door. I don't work with the gangs because they cause part of the problem; the other two have an equitable business, Aria's too dangerous, the Blood Pack are just a dangerous as Aria, though they usually don't trust non-krogans anyway. On my free time I built or repaired things and sold them to vendors in the markets."

"Guy as smart as you should have had enough credits to buy a ticket off of Omega by then. Why stay batarian?" Nyona didn't trust that he stayed because he wanted to.

Forta turned to look at Nyona, his four eyes weren't showing any sign of discontent or any other emotion towards her, "Why leave? Sure it's not the best place in the galaxy but it was a place. The Citadel races already have a stigma on batarians, especially humans, no thanks to the pirates and slavers. I'm here so I can leave and never look back. I'm sure we'll be back again but for now we won't be."

Bev then said, "Remember now, Forta, your part of a squad now so not only do you have to pull your weight but you also have to watch each other's back."

Forta tapped a few buttons on his omni-tool, "I'll need to adjust to working in a group. Never really have before…"

Tare was uneasy about Vren and Nyona but he wasn't afraid to talk about himself, "My turn then. My name is Tare'Nara vas Kira, son of Izosh and Enrai. I'm here because I volunteered to join the foreigners who helped defend the fleet without incentive. I was one of the Kira's top navigators. I have some marine training though I did not have to rely on most of it during my Pilgrimage."

Prudii then interrupted, "Noticed you have hesitated. Why?"

"Well, I'm not afraid of blood or killing. I have killed in the past, it just…I'd rather not see organs outside a person's body. When you and Vren fought I thought for sure someone was going to lose something." He turned to Aran headstrong, "I'm not a coward. If we have to kill someone I can do that. I just don't want to see anything like that again…"

"OK that's it," Rang sat next to the quarian, "I may be a medic but you my friend are showing emotional scars from somewhere in your past. Time to talk." Rang could see Tare didn't want to relive whatever it was so he placed his arm around Tare's neck, "Hey, we're a family here. Well the six of us are, I don't know what the turian, batarian, krogan or asari think, but we are."

Tare didn't want to say anything but if he was going to continue working with them he was going to have to, "When I was about twelve or so there was a virus that spread through a ship. I was old enough to wear my first suit but I got lost and ended up in the morgue. No one was around and I went inside and found a…a quarian cut open with his organs removed. I don't remember much after that but that was also the day my parents adapted my cousin. His mother died defending the fleet from pirates and his father died from the virus."

Rang thought about the situation out loud, "Understandable. You got to understand the bug to prevent it in the future. I didn't think a kid could accidentally stumble into a morgue, unless things were hectic there. Besides that, you were saying…"

"Right…but besides that, I am concerned for my little cousin. He's going to be leaving for his Pilgrimage soon and…but I'm worried for him."

Rasen hesitated when asked, "Is it alright…if I tell them, Tare?"

Tare nodded to her, "I think it would be better if you did."

Rasen then continued for Tare, "His cousin's name is Veetor'Nara and he is very…nervous around crowds."

Nyona intruded, "Don't you quarians have to live in crowded ships? And I thought you keep a zero population growth on that fleet of yours?"

Rasen answered Nyona, "We do, but some ships are not as spacious as others. As for our population, we lost a lot of marines some time ago and a few ships have had nasty diseases in the past killing a number of people. Not enough to truly worry about but a number of families were allowed to have more than one child. Veetor's father and Tare's father were part of that group. I too was born under a similar, yet different circumstance. I don't know what caused it, nor shall I inquire how Veetor gained his condition, but hopefully after his Pilgrimage he will change for the better."

"Before I joined, I thought I was going to be able to keep up with you guys, but now…I don't know…"

Before Tare could say anymore, Aran lent out a hand. "You're with us now, kid. I see potential in you, so do my _vode_."

The other members of Sigma Squad showed their approval; Prudii nodded his head, Rang gave him a thumbs up, and Beviin saluted for a second. _Rasen was right…_

Tare grabbed Aran's hand as the clone encouraged his crewmember, "After we get you into our training, I think we can eventually help you get over you fears too."

* * *

**A/N: **I'm burning through these backstories faster then I was expecting(Thought it would take 2 more chapters, didn't think how long 3000 word really are). Everyone has their reasons for joining as you all have seen, some more noble then others. I squeezed in a mention of the 'Honor Bound' story and I got to show off what other commando squads(at least Sigma) thought about the 'legendary' Delta Squad, respected but begrudged at the same time. Sigma Squad is open to their recruits but they will train them hard and make sure no one dies because of a show boater or the inability to cooperate. Like I said last chapter, I don't know if I should just move on into ME2 story or add another mission before skipping the year and a half. If someone could, because I don't know how, poll the idea.


	14. The beginning of something

**A/N: **Alright here are Rasen and (partly )Nyona's tale(will continue her's later). Also I've started to give titles to the chapters, easier for you more work for me. Also, why didn't anyone notice my mistake with Rasen's ship name, please assist me with things like that with a PM or something because often I'm writing or posting these around midnight my time. I'm naming the chapters for both my convinience and yours, because I plan to split the large into 3.

* * *

Rang decided to tease Rasen about asking to hear her tale, "So Raz, are you going to let your friends learn more about you, or do we have to ask Nyona first? So, can I call you Raz or do you like Sen better?"

They might not be able to see her face but Rasen's body language was clear. "How about my real name instead, Rang?"

"Come on, saying Rasen in the heat of battle's going to be hard to say. I'm probably going to yell V to get Vren's attention, Kix is already short, I already have a list of name for Forta and I'm still thinking of names for Nyona…" Nyona started giving Rang the stink-eye the moment he turned towards her, "but I can't say them now if I want to live."

"Just call me Rasen. If you don't need your shields in the next battle I can always drain them for you?"

Rang backed up, "No, no it's fine. Just go on with your story, Rasen…"

After a small chuckle she kept in her helmet, she turned to look Araniik helmet to helmet, "My name is Rasen'Doran vas Ideena. I was her chief engineer…and half-sister to Ysin."

Sigma Squad was shocked, "You were the captain's sister?"

"Half-sister, Bev. We both have the same mother."

"Wow. To think you and he are related…I mean he's a radical but he was level headed and you are such a fireball."

Sarcastically she replied, "Thanks, Rang." She continued, "Like Tare's parents, I too was born under special circumstances. Remember I talked about ships having nasty diseases, well combined with a bad air filters it can get worse. We once lost a half a crew due to dead air filters. That's how Mal's father died…" She had to pause for a moment, "I'm sorry, I've never talked about this outside my family…"

Surprisingly Beviin was the one to try and comfort her, "We've lost more family then any would dare imagine. We've even watched some fall in front of our eyes. We understand the pain you feel and that makes us more of a family because you're telling us."

Rang pinged Prudii on private channels, "More emotion from him then I was expecting." Prudii nodded again, both to help Rasen and agree with Rang. Rang then spoke aloud, "Blood may be thicker than water but the family bonds of Mandalorians are just as thick, right boss man?"

"You said it Rang…"

Under their helmets all four members of Sigma Squad were smiling and they watched as a tear rolled down her face, "Thanks guys…" During their time onboard the Ideena they all learned to see behind a quarian's mask despite the dark colors that hid it. "Where was I…right, at the time Mal was about four. When I was born Mal already had his first suit, fourteen or fifteen, I always mix that up. Anyway, I always looked up to my brother and was proud to call him such. He always watched out for me and protected me. When it was time for my Pilgrimage around my twenty-fourth birthday, I had received word my brother had returned and with a very large and new ship for the fleet. I had to return with something just as useful for to fleet. I traveled on my own for a few years, but all I was able to obtain was a used cargo ship full of spare parts for miscellaneous repairs throughout the entire fleet. When I returned about three years later, my brother had become captain of his own ship and I wanted to join his ship. But I felt ashamed about only have what I had. When I approached the Flotilla I had unknowingly boarded his ship. I still remember that day; as I entered the ship he embraced me in a hug. I presented my gift and he said, 'That's my baby sister, out doing me I see. I'm proud of you sis and welcome to the Ideena…' Soon, he was under political fire for letting me join his crew, but Mal just ignored most of them or said we we're all kin. I never understood why so many disliked my brother until I heard the reason, he was proposing for long-term missions to find and begin colonizing a new world."

Curious, Tare asked, "So, what did you think about your brother's thoughts when you found out?"

"Like most quarians at first, I thought he was insane. But, the longer I pondered the idea, the more it made sense to me, and not because he was my brother. We quarians have traveled for three hundred years looking for a way to reclaim our homeworld, but if we don't do something soon, I don't know what, but I don't think ship life could sustained us for much longer. As I became an engineer for the ship, people soon found out I had a different way of doing things then my brother. But like him, I am willing to admit and accept my mistakes. Personally I always try to stay out of politics but I'm not afraid to express my opinion, I just try to be mindful my brother has to take part in it."

"That's politics for yea. Hell, we were made for politicians to fight defecting politicians basically. And don't try to deny it bros; you guys know it's true." Rang was half right, unaware of the Sith factor that also played its hand in their creation.

"By the time you guys showed up I had an entire team who followed my orders but something just felt…out of place. When you four were there, it felt like a piece finally fell into place, and when you guys left I felt incomplete again. I voluntarily left the Ideena because you four needed all the help you could get and also…I didn't want to be a hindrance to Mal. If you ask him, he would never see me like that. But ever since I joined his ship, he's had problems Conclave related."

"Rasen, it's not your fault. Ever since Captain Ysin'Mal became a captain, he had started proposing the idea to the Conclave and Admiralty Board. Politicians used you because you had joined his ship. I have over heard that many captains respected your brother, they just didn't want him to cause trouble for the fleet and they felt if they could discredit him then he would stop proposing the idea, at least before the incident with Cerberus happened. I'm not saying what I felt, just what I've had heard from others."

She calmly turned to Tare and said, "Thanks, I needed to hear that."

Rang added, "Soon, we can call you _ori'vod_. Well that's going to be true about all of you guys anyway. So…" Rang leaned on Nyona's chair, "my blue angel, are we going to hear your story…or am I going to have to run like hell?"

She began glowing Biotic blue again as Rang ran behind Prudii as he murmured to Rang, "_Di'kut_…"

Nyona continued, "My name is Nyona. That's all you need to know about me personally. I can handle anything with a trigger, or crush you with my Biotics. Assassinations, intelligence gathering, frontal assault; name it and I can do it. Just don't expect me to be all chummy with any of you. I'm only here…"

"So Aria doesn't kill you." Vren interrupted. The krogan continued, "I know you far too well not to know that you stepped on plenty of toes back on Omega. I'm sure that the Pirate Queen didn't mind as long as you paid your dues, which you were cutting her out of…and eventually she found out didn't she?"

Nyona stuttered a bit, "Th-that's not what was happening! I was in complete control the whole time. Aria couldn't touch me in there!"

"I beg to differ." Aran signaled to Bev, who tossed his holo emitter in the middle of the group. "This is what I saw…" It was displaying a video recording of Aran walking into the VIP area of Afterlife. He looked around then his HUD activated it tactical mode highlighting everyone, including a shady looking turian hiding in a very dim lit booth in the upper level.

The HUD zoomed in on the turian, "Wait," Nyona stopped herself, "That's…Gavorn…but why was he there?"

"You know the turian?"

"He's a captain in Aria's little private army. He's usually killing vermin, like vorcha."

Aran fast forward past their conversations and paused when he looked up as he faked his leave. His helmet spotted Gavorn with a sniper rifle in hand and had it aimed at Nyona's head. Aran replied, "Looks like Aria thought it was time to remove an old pest one way or another." Bev deactivated the hologram.

Vren casually added, "Common warlord tactic. You take out the leader of a rival group in his or her own base, then assimilate or eliminate the minions. It proves a point saying 'I can easily squash anyone trying to oppose me'. But you were more like a cancer then a vermin. If you hadn't left willingly, that turian would have probably blown your pretty little head clean off your shoulders. Whether you were her pupil or not, in her line of work, Aria can't risk showing favoritism to anyone."

Nyona knew Aria wanted her gone but for her to place Captain Gavorn in the VIP section without her knowing and she could have easily disposed of her whenever Aria wanted. Aran let the shock occupy her mind as he turned to the rest of his new crew, "As we wait for her to recover, I need armor measurements. We only need Vren, Kix, Rasen and Tare."

Kix, still not keen to the idea of working for the strange human, asked, "Why only us? What about four-eyes or the asari?"

"Because, we have recently acquired a crap load of human-sized armor of various classes and we'd like to only weld what's necessary." Rang added with his usually, if not annoying to others, disposition.

Vren didn't see a point, "Why not just buy used armor. It'd save you four the trouble."

"First, my krogan friend, we are both broke and cheap…"

"That's not true, Rang…" Beviin continued, "The real reason is so we can truly be one clan." Bev pressed a few buttons on his omni-tool again and the hologram displayed a helmet. "Mandalorians are famous for our love of a good fight and our armor. Armors can be custom tailored for the wearer but the one thing that we all share, no matter the species, is the helmet's T-shaped visor."

Aran continued on, "We're going to be professionals, and as professionals your armor will have the same helmet design. Vren's design is going to need a bit of work and we plan to create armors that can go over your suits, Rasen, Tare, for your health."

* * *

For the past five hours, Sigma Squad had locked themselves in the cargo hold and cracked open the cargo ramp to let out all of the smoke from their welding work. Most of the new crew was waiting in the training area. "They're taking their sweet time. How long can it take to fuse a few armors?"

Rasen confronted Kix, "A good weld can time. Bev and the others are perfectionists. I've heard them complain about not having things called 'fusioncutters' and 'hydrocutters'. They've welded pieces onto the Ideena that looked like they had been there since we received her."

Vren was taking some aggression out on a few dummies lying around, "A good weapon or armor takes time to be made, turian. Besides, I sure those boys are trying to remove any Cerberus bugs hidden on the armors and weapons."

Tare asked, "How do you know about them?"

The krogan gave one last punch to the dummy then turned to Tare, "I worked a few ops with others including this one crazy human; Zadee, Zadi, Za-something, damn human names. Anyway, we killed plenty of Cerberus guys. The only reason I know they were Cerberus because I heard the name and I remember seeing their symbol on one of my kills and some of the crates. As a merc, we do the job, got paid and leave." Vren turned towards Rasen, "But from what I've seen, I'm sure we're going to have more than just that to deal with."

Nyona came down to the training area to vent her frustration on a few paper targets. Vren's tech attacks were good, for a krogan, as he continued to launch tech mines and other tech based attacks at paper targets. Finally, the clones came out with six crates. Other than Prudii, due to his black armor, the others had signs of charring from their welding work. "Alright crew, get your armors. Get'em while their warm."

Bev started to distribute them, "Rasen, Tare first two are yours. Vren and Kix next two boxes belong to you. Nyona and Forta's are the last two. Where is the batarian anyway?"

As Rasen grabbed her case she said, "Forta went to his room to 'reestablish himself' as he said. I think he's going to try and recreate his old room, Bev."

Bev tried his best not to imagine it but all the wires strung up and part scattered around kept appearing in his mind.

* * *

With their alien allies donning their new hardware, Araniik started talking specs, "Each armor is custom made for each of you. We went to great length to program your species languages into the systems. Your visors can have three basic setting, your normal vision, low light mode, and tactical mode. The first two are self-explanatory, tactical mode will highlight objectives and is useful in identifying friends and foes. Your HUD can link up to other so we can monitor your status, like if you're injured or endanger."

Each helmet bore the distinguished T-shaped visor, even Vren's helmet. The armors were made for great protection and shield. The armors were heavy sets but for some, Tare, Rasen and Forta, were lighter like light armor. The armors were seamlessly fused together, with no visible mark of welding anywhere on the exterior and interior.

Beviin added, "You can also communicate privately between one or more squadmates. We have the speakers when we want everyone to hear. You can change your suit's settings to your personal preference when you want."

Rang also said, "I found some paint in one of the storage areas, so if any of you want to change the colors, please don't forget to lock the door and hang a sign so we don't run into a cloud of paint or something."

Vren was flexing in her new armor, "I'm starting to think I can get past your Spectre status sooner. And I think I'm going to like this armor."

Nyona was looking at herself in a mirror, "This will be interesting none the less…"

* * *

For the next year and a half, Sigma Squad enlisted a full crew of the best specialist in their fields not widely recognized by the galaxy. Twelve humans, five salarians, fourteen turians, six asari, two krogans and a volus banker to manage all of the credits the team had earned and split the earnings accordingly; all of whom were crafted a set of Mandalorian armor by Sigma Squad. Everyone onboard also learned Mando'a, some weren't fluently able to speak it but they could understand it. Sigma Squad only recruited those who wanted to make a difference to the galaxy, in the most unusual ways. Everyone onboard had gained respect and trust towards one another. Even the volus, Prath, was viewed as a valued part of the crew.

Soon they would become known throughout the galaxy as one of the best merc band that credits could buy but they have been known to turn on their contractors if they found out about things they dislike or know about it. An example was from one of their early contracts, they were hired by a group of slavers to return a group of escaped slaves for them, only to have killed every slaver in their own base after being paid then freeing any slave they found at the base. Like Araniik promised, Sigma Squad and their crew assisted the Council as Spectres, removing problems while keeping their status a secret outside the Vhonte. Sigma Squad repaid their 'debt' to Aria and then sum, informing her about contracts they had received that threaten her operations and they regularly shopped at Banthar for ship parts and arms.

The new Mandalorians even fought in the war against the geth. During one of the battles, Prudii received a call from Tali. "Prudii, am I interrupting anything?"

"Not really." as he sniped down two geth and took cover from a rocket.

"What about all of those explosions and weapon fire I'm hearing?"

Prudii lied, "Simulator."

Tali couldn't see so she had to believe him, "If you say so, Prudii. I've been asked by my father to assist him on a project he is working on. He wants me to send him geth parts to the Alarei for…something. I think my father is performing weapons test on geth components."

Invisible, Prudii stabbed a geth's spinal column with one of his vibroblade and shot down two more with his pistol, "Anything specific?"

She told Prudii what she was told, "It has to be in working order. Something that can be analyzed and integrated into other technology. Anything new has priority. Technology the geth have developed themselves. Signs of modification, clues to their thinking. Also make sure the components won't be prone to spontaneous reactivation or self-repairs, if possible."

Prudii had pinned a hopper under his boot as he shot down a group that had pinned Vren and Forta behind a few crates. "Done. I'll ask Rasen how to send parts to him."

Even though no one would ever see it, Tali smiled, "Thank you Prudii, for everything." After she disconnected Prudii finished the hopper with a single shot.

* * *

True to his word, after all the geth were destroyed, Prudii gathered parts that weren't too damaged and asked Rasen to examine them. "So, why are you asking me this?"

"Because…"

"Because, I don't remember any orders from Aran or Bev that said to scavenge the area for geth parts." Rasen was willing to help but she never liked being left in the dark about why.

Prudii couldn't look her in the eye as he switched to her personal comm. channel, "Because Tali asked me to help her with something her father's doing…" grumbling everything.

"Was that so hard?" She knew Prudii was groaning to himself, "I'll look over the parts and send them to Admiral Rael for you and Tali."

"Thank…you…" Rasen kept her promise to Prudii and examined any geth component he found after any engagement against the geth, sending the parts to Admiral Zorah for his project.

* * *

**A/N: **More about Nyona later when it becomes relevant, which things will soon. Rang's comment ori'vod and its translation refer to Rasen but the same word in general means older sibling, FYI for those who don't understand Mando'a and want to yell at me about that. Informing Aria about contracts received doesn't mean they accepted the contract. Next stop Freedom's Progress and things are going to get wild. The ship's crew are like the people we saw on SR-1 and SR-2, stationed at various areas of the ship performing the necessary tasks to fly the Vhonte. They're going to be the no-named-helpers on the ship, most of them.

**Mandalorian Translation:** ori'vod(OH-ree-VOHD)- bigger brother(sister), older brother(sister), special friend

Di'kut(DEE-koot)- Idiot


	15. Surprise from Freedom

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything to Mass Effect and Star Wars and they belong to their respected people.

**A/N: **Finally stepping into ME2, going through Freedom's Progress. Truthfully I've had most of this mostly written by around the time I wrote the 4th chapter. Had to make some adjustments and add-ons but it's mostly the same when I first wrote it.

* * *

Tare was distracted by something recently and the whole crew could feel it, and as captain, Aran was responsible for the crew's stability. "Aran? I am sorry. I've been distracted lately."

"Tare, the crew's starting to get worried about you. What's wrong?"

He wasn't sure how to tell him, "It…it's my _vod_, Veetor." Tare shock himself out of his flashbacks, "Sorry, my mind was wandering down old memories. The Admiralty Board has just sent me a message: Veetor might be lost to us."

Aran knew how to read in-between words, "What do you mean 'might'?"

"When Veetor left for his Pilgrimage, he chose a remote human colony to work at. The colony, Freedom's Progress, went silent like the other human colonies that vanshised." No matter how much training he received, Tare would always worry about his cousin. "If it's at all possible Aran, can we go to the human colony to look for him, not that the Migrant Fleet wouldn't send a search team, I mean, I just want to know I did everything I could before accepting the fact that he…"

With a hand on Tare's shoulder Aran nodded his head, "Bev, can you hear me?"

He responded over the intercom, "Loud and clear, sir."

With a smirk on his face Aran orders, "Head to the colony Freedom's Progress, were looking to rescue a lost quarian."

"Copy that Aran, setting new course."

Tare almost burst into tears when he heard that. "Thank you Aran, Keelah se'lai."

* * *

Getting to the shuttle Aran had ordered Bev to maintain the ship as close to the colony as possible, while Rang scanned for anything; life signs, electrical interference, movement; with Prudii, Tare, Doran, Kixritvira and himself went planet side.

After landing in a remote and isolated area, the team spotted another shuttle, and it bore a Cerberus symbol. The team was about to shoot when Aran stopped them, "They're probably here to look for whatever has been doing this. If we're lucky we won't have to worry about running into them. Let's move team."

Rang called the away-team and gave his report, "Alright guys expect several mechs running around the place, I can't say if they'll shoot at you though. That shuttle only had three life signs walk out of it, oh and big shocker their all humans. I have a mass of quarian life signs gathered a few buildings ahead of you, if I had to count, it's around twenty something and…here we go, an isolated quarian signature. Odd…"

"What is it Rang?" It was never good news when he said that.

"That it's a lone quarian and its surrounded by a lot of mechs; several LOKIs, a hand full of FERISs, bunch of rocket and assaults drones and…one YMIR, oh lucky you if you have to fight the damn thing. At least it's not as bad as one of those damn spider droids; just as powerful but with less armor and has a shield."

Prudii pulled out one of his recon droids to locate the quarian team Rang was talking about. He turned to Rasen, "Can fix it, right?"

"If all of the pieces are salvageable I should be able to do something back on the ship Prudii, with Bev's help." Prudii pressed a button and the little droid began to float from his hand.

Waiting for its orders the little droid looked at its master, not that most could tell with all of the circles covering the sphere. He pointed to the two quarians with him and then pointed forward. With a series of beeps and whistles the little ball flew off. Prudii pulled a disc from his belt that he activated creating a blue holo of everything the recon droid saw. Kix didn't like this; putting his life in the fate of a ball he might be able to crush between his talons. But he came to trust Sigma, so if they're willing to follow he can't complain too much.

The team proceeded behind it, avoiding several active mechs because of it. The recon droid stopped in front of an unlocked door waiting for the rest of them. Prudii returned the ball back into his pack as Aran knocked on the door. "Don't shot, were not mechs or Cerberus. We're coming inside now." Prudii had one blade at the ready and his pistol in the other hand against the wall next to the door. Kix, Rasen and Tare stood ready with their weapons as Aran opened the door.

Inside they found four quarians examining a map and expecting them. The one next to the door had her enviro-suit in a different style then any quarian Aran had seen. Some of the cloth was covering her head and some of the tubes, exaggerating hair. She extended a hand out and the moment she spoke they knew, "Aran, it's good to see you here. Are Prudii and the others with you?"

"Tali?" Prudii eased himself as he put his weapons away. "You're part of the search team?"

She looked at Tare, "Yes. I figured you guys would come here. I see you've been outfitted with new armor," commenting about Rasen and Tare's Mandalorian wear.

"Comes with being a part of this new _aliit_. Aran is very protective of all of us." Rasen pronounced the word properly and she was adapting quite well to her new Mandalorian family.

She motioned for them to enter. After the last person was in, she closed the door, "Can't be too careful…"

"It's the least you can do against Cerberus and a bunch of mechs." Kix had moved to a corner with plenty of cover and was fiddling with his assault rifle's settings.

"So you saw them too?"

Aran nodded, "Yeah, Rang confirmed it and said to expect three of them. So what's the situation?"

One of the male quarian walked over, "Not good. Veetor's delusional right now and…"

Tare interrupted, "What happened to Veetor? Tell me Prazza."

They trained together with the Migrant Fleet Marines and Prazza had respect for Tare, "You know how unstable Veetor was, Tare. Combined with damage to his suit's CO2 scrubbers and an infection from an open-air exposure he's probably delirious."

Tali added, "When we landed he hid in a warehouse on the far end of town. We suspect Veetor was the one who also programmed the mechs to attack anything that moved."

"Thank you, for informing us. Aran, we have to rescue my _vod_. He's the only family I've had to protect; beside your crew."

Prudii was examining the map the quarians were just looking at. He pointed, "Here." He activated his recon droid again and it flew over to that spot.

* * *

Just as everything had quieted down again, the door opened with three humans entering, pistols at the ready. Prazza, his team, Kix, Tare, Prudii, Aran and Rasen had their weapons trained on a target with Prazza shouting at the humans, "Stop right there!"

Aran and Prudii noticed that, somehow, Shepard was flanked by a pair of Cerberus agents, a black male and a white female. Aran lowered his weapon. As Tali ran in-between the two sides, "Prazza you said you'd let me handle this! Wait…Shepard?"

Rasen moved towards the woman, "I'm not taking any chances with Cerberus operatives!"

"Put those weapons down! Shepard? Is that…you're alive." Despite Tali saying it, as well as Shepard and the other humans putting their pistols away, Prudii, Rasen, Tare and Kix were still aiming their weapons at the other two humans.

"_Udesii vode_!" Kix, Tare and Rasen followed suit as Prudii hesitantly attached his DC-17m to his leg, keeping his hand on his DC-15s pistol.

Shepard had proved he was real by confirming with Tali about the geth data he gave her to use for her Pilgrimage. As Tali and Prazza informed Shepard about the current situation Prudii and Aran had a private chat together. "Aran, something doesn't feel right."

"I know, and all around Cerberus again. Have one of the recon droids watch over them." Nodding, Prudii pulled out the other recon droid and activated it.

At that time Shepard was offering to work with them to find Veetor of which both Prazza and Tare objected, "I don't care if it's the turian elites, if Cerberus is involved it will only bring harm to Veetor!"

"Agreed Tare. We don't need to work with them."

Tali had gained more of a backbone last time Sigma Squad saw her, as she yelled at the two quarians "No Prazza you're working for me and you're under Aran's command, Tare. If either of you can't follow orders go wait on the ship." Tali turned back to Shepard, "Head to the warehouse through the center of the colony. We'll circle around the far side and draw off some of the drones to clear your path."

Shepard had to ask, "Sigma Squad and your people really don't like Cerberus. What did I miss?"

Rasen answered, "They killed our people, infiltrated the Flotilla, and tried to blow up my ship, the Idenna."

The woman barked back, "That's not how I'd explained it, exactly. It was nothing personal." looking at Rasen.

Aran followed up, "And ever since that little encounter, they've had their agents try to hunt us down. Too bad for them, Bev knows how to change a ship's registration while flying and we are the elites of covert-ops; their pathetic agents were nothing compared to us when we struck back."

Now turning her attention to the two commandos, "All we wanted was some of your technology. If we had even one of pieces of equipment we could advance in any number of fields."

Aran couldn't help but laugh at her, "At the expense of our lives, miss? No thanks, we don't plan on sharing anything with you any time soon."

"Follow Shepard. Stay out of reach of the woman." Just like the last one, it responded with bleeps and whistles and hovered over next to Shepard. Prudii unmuted his helmet. "Keep it safe, Shepard. Expecting it back later in one piece. I will hunt you to get it back safely." With everything set, Aran led his team out separate from the others in hopes to meeting back with Tali and the other quarians before moving in. Kix and Prudii climbed one of the buildings to scout the area out. With photographic memory Prudii knew where they were and where his first droid was. It was waiting for them and Prudii pointed the team to it.

* * *

Arriving, the droid was all a flutter. Aran asked, "What'd you find little guy?" It led them to a nearby over turned box that had recently fallen.

"Well let's see what we got our selves here," When Kix tried to lift it, the droid zapped his hand with the stunner built in. "OW! Why you little…this is why A.I.s are outlawed." Kix was about to point his rifle at it when Prudii stopped him.

"Look." The droid was sitting on the box preventing whatever it was inside from escaping. Prudii had an empty anti-armor round casing on hand and a lid that could fit; he normally doesn't check this weapon set and Prudii often had one empty round. Kix went on the other side with Prudii ready to catch something. As soon as the turian lifted the box, an unusual looking bug tried to sting Prudii in one of his unarmored areas. Prudii was too fast, even for the bug, as he canned it. It desperately tried to break its way out of the casing which was pointless. "Bev and Rang can study."

* * *

With that side trip over, they were a section away from where Veetor was said to be located. They were waiting for Tali's signal when Prudii was contacted. "Prudii, where are you guys?"

Aran answered her, "We're right outside. Why?"

"Prazza and his squad went on ahead. I told him not to go. They want to get to Veetor before Cerberus does." Tali sounded worried.

"We'll go now." Aran then signaled his team to prepare to engage.

"Wait." Heavy mechanical foot can be heard in the background. "Veetor has activated a heavy mech. It's tearing Prazza's squad apart. Shepard should be ready to enter too. I'm opening the doors…be careful everyone." With that she pressed a few buttons on her omni-tool and retreated back into the building. As the mech was finishing the last of Prazza's team, Aran and the others moved inside the building opposite of Tali. Shepard's team seemed to have caught its attention. While it was focusing its attack on them, Aran, Rasen, Tare, Prudii and Kix ripped through the shields. Next was to peal at its armor. Now they were the mechs focus of attention. The machine gun arm was keeping them down behind cover.

"Well this is just great! Cerberus and an YMIR…can our luck get any worse?" Kix's sarcasm was akin to Rang on a 'good' day.

Suddenly it stopped so it could fire a rocket from the other arm. Shepard and the Cerberus agents took the time to attack the mech while it was turned away from them. They almost wore out its armor before it began to attack them again. While they were waiting Prudii had switched to his DC sniper rifle. With everyone weakening it, Prudii moved himself so he had a clear shot at the cylinder for a head. With Prudii's perfect shot, the mech collapsed onto its knees as the power core was overloading itself. Everyone was bracing for the large blast to follow. The blast for the mech shook much of the area and their shields were mostly taken down by the heat but no one was injured. After Prudii confirmed the field was clear, their team moved to where Tali and another quarian woman were tending to some of the survivors of Prazza's team.

Tali looked at them, "Now's your chance to find Veetor while I tend to the wounded."

Aran began giving orders, "Rasen, Kix help out here." He then radioed, "Rang, bring a medical team down with you to assist with the injured."

Rang answered back, "Let's see…no electrical interference, and no signs of any other Cerberus besides the shuttle. Alright, med team landing near your position. We'll be there in a minute."

With the shuttle safely touched down, Rang and four armored individuals with medical supplies rushed out. Aran pointed them to the building as they all saluted him and ran off. Tare saw Shepard and the two Cerberus agents walk into the warehouse and the Sigma group soon followed.

Inside, they watched as Shepard shut down the monitors and Veetor standing up. Before Shepard could anything, Tare ran up to his cousin and hugged him, "Veetor…I'm glad you're alright." But Tare could feel that something was wrong. Stepping back he asked him, "Veetor, what's the matter? It's me. It's Tare."

Veetor's voice was stuttered, "T-T-Tare? No. Not Tare. Can't be Tare. Tare left."

Tare removed his armored helmet to reveal his enviro-suit's mask, "It's me Veetor. This armor was made for me by Sigma Squad, the team I joined about two years ago."

Miranda interrupted, "We're trying to learn what happened here. Save your reunion for later."

Tare donned his helmet again and turned towards her, "Screw you, Cerberus! I almost lost my _vod_ here and all you care about is interrogating him."

Shepard calmly asked, "We want to know what happened to the colony."

"You don't know. You didn't see. I see everything." Veetor then pressed some buttons on the console.

As they watched the security video, Miranda uttered, "My god. I think it's a Collector."

Aran could only shake his head, "So those bastards are behind the string of human colony attacks." Aran privatized his comm., "Bev, Forta, you guys getting all of this?"

Bev responded, "Recording and encrypting the data as we speak, sir."

Miranda turned to the commandos, "You know them?"

They both nodded as Aran answered her, "We've received messages for contracts but we usually refused them and we have killed a few in Aria's name."

Shepard asked, "Is that some kind of alien?"

Aran answered him, "Bugs rumored to exist somewhere beyond the Omega-4 Mass Relay. Very few living people have ever seen them. They hire slavers and mercs for rare specimens to trade for their 'advanced' technology. Common tech that can be found in a junkyard in our galaxy really. Nothing we could us though."

Jacob commented, "They could have a weapon that could disable an entire colony at once."

Veetor answered him, "The seeker swarms. No one can hide. The seekers find you. Freeze you. Then the monsters take you away."

Shepard asked, "Why didn't the Collectors take you?"

Veetor was still nervous as he answered, "Swarms didn't find me. Monsters didn't know I was here."

Tare speculated, "Our suits can hide our life signs, but judging from Veetor's status, he should have been detected."

Miranda rebutted, "Or they were using technologies specifically designed to target humans. Only human colonies have been hit."

Shepard turned to Veetor and said, "Tell me more about these swarms."

Veetor still shaken replied, "It's how they find you. Seeker clouds. Machines like tiny insects. They go everywhere. They find you. Then they sting you. Freeze you."

* * *

Prudii turned to Aran and talked privately, "Sir, the bug drone one found."

Aran, still keeping it private, contacted everyone on the colony, "Mandalorians, no one talks about the bug the recon droid found for us, not even to the quarians. Rang, you're going to get us out of that medical box you wanted."

* * *

Tare, Aran and Prudii returned to the conversation when Shepard asked, "What happened next?"

Veetor turned to the many screens behind him, "Monsters took the people onto the ship and then they left. The ship flew away. But they'll be back for me. No one escapes!"

Jacob spoke his mind, "I think that's probably all we're getting out of him, Commander."

The Commander thanked Veetor, "We appreciate what you've told us. You were very helpful."

Veetor then stated, "I studied them. The monsters. The swarm." Veetor activated his omni-tool, "I recorded them with my omni-tool. Lots of readings. Electro-magnetic. Dark energy."

Tare wrapped his arm around his cousin, "Come on Veetor, let's get you home."

Miranda then interrupted before Aran could speak, "Just a minute there. We need to get this data to the Illusive Man."

Before Miranda could say anything, Prudii, using his cloaking tech, had moved himself behind her with his pistol to her head and Aran aiming his DC-17m at Jacob. Aran, Prudii and Tare assumed the worst as Tare stepped in-between Veetor and the humans aiming his assault rifle at them, "I'll let you take Veetor to one of your facilities for interrogation, over my dead body!"

Tali and Rasen walked in as Tare said that. "What? Veetor is injured. He needs treatment, not an interrogation!"

Jacob was trying to ease the quarians, "We won't hurt him. We just need to see if he knows anything else. He'll be returned unharmed."

Miranda then pointed out, "Your people already tried to betray us once already. If we give him to you, we won't get the intel we need." Prudii was still pressing his weapon against her head.

Rasen had her point for not trusting Cerberus, "What about the Cyniad's crew? You needlessly killed them all with Golo's help, then you had the nerve to use her to attack my home ship and left a bomb that would have destroyed both ships! Bosh'tet, why should we trust you?"

Tali added to Rasen's argument, "Prazza was an idiot, and he and his men paid for it. You're welcome to Veetor's omni-tool data, but please. Just let me take him."

Shepard tried convincing Tali to join him, "You don't have to take Veetor and go Tali. We could work together. Just like old times."

She answered, "I want to, but I can't. I've got a mission of my own. It's too important for me to abandon even for you. When it's over, and I'm still alive, we'll see what happens."

Prudii was feeling jealousy for the first time but he was genuinely concerned, "What mission? Can we help?"

Tali had a smile underneath her mask, "Thanks, for the offer, but I think we can handle it. Besides, I don't think Cerberus needs to hear it. But it's in geth space. That should tell you how important it is." She wanted Prudii and the others to go with her but because of their mercenary front; it would be difficult to explain to others without exposing Sigma Squad's Spectre status.

It was a few seconds but Shepard turned to Miranda, "He's traumatized, and needs medical care. Tali will give us the omni-tool data and take him to the Flotilla."

Disgruntled, Miranda complied, "Understood, Commander." With that Prudii and Tare returned to Aran side.

Tali expressed her gratitude to Shepard and promised to send him any information that could help.

Aran also had one last thing to say to the Commander, "We have a few angles we can work off of to help on our own, if this involves the Reapers. This doesn't count as an attempt to find us," he was now focused on Miranda, "and you better hope that doesn't change. I'd rather not have to kill an ex-Spectre."

* * *

Outside they waited for Shepard and Cerberus to leave first. Rang and his team stabilized and saved four quarians who were attacked by the YIMR but the others, including Prazza, were far beyond saving, even for bacta.

Prudii was with Tali, "Offer still stands. Us accompanying you on your mission."

She took his hand, "Thanks Prudii, I appreciate the offer but I want to do this on my own. It was given to me by the Admiralty Board so I have to complete this mission."

Prudii understood, having had similar responsibilities for the Republic before, "Stay safe. Keep in contact…"

* * *

Kix, Rasen, Tare, Aran and Rang had a private chat about the resurrected Shepard and Cerberus. "…_Lise mhi ruusaanyc ruyot_ Spectre?" Kix had a hard time with so many vowels but he was getting their and the others could understand what he meant.

Aran had limited view about it, "Only Tali or someone from the Normandy can say if Shepard has changed, but from what I've seen, he seems to be himself so far."

"As long as Veetor is safe I don't care what the human does."

Rasen slapped Tare, "If it wasn't for that human, your cousin might be in the hands of Cerberus."

"_Su_," Rang helped an injured quarian onto their ship, "_ni copaani hibira dinui beskar'ad ru mar'eyiru_. A storm's blowing and that thing is just the tip of the spear, boss."

"Agreed Rang. Now we have to convince the Council to do something. But we need proof and not just that one sample." Aran could only think of three information dealers that might have the dirt they need. One resided on Omega and the other on Illium and the last one was the Shadow Broker, but the Shadow Broker was a questionable source and Sigma Squad didn't trust anyone with so much power. Their Illium contact, Dr. T'Soni might become emotionally caught up learning, or already knowing, Shepard was alive. Aran contacted the crew, "Sigma Squad, _Mando'ade, mhi kovid at_ Omega."

* * *

Back at a secret Cerberus space station, Commander Shepard was conferring with the Illusive Man about the mission on Freedom's Progress. Leading to the discussion about his old crew, Shepard asked, though reserve about believing him, "What about Tali or Sigma Squad? They already helped us out on Freedom's Progress."

"That was unexpected. I need more intel before I'll commit, for her only. As for the 'Mandalorians', they've made their view abundantly clear. I'm still confirming whether they are lying about being Spectres or if they are the real deal."

_Spectres? Is that's what Aran meant by having a few angles to work off of?_

* * *

**A/N: **Still thinking if Sigma should be around for Horizon but I don't think they'll be around for the Collector Ship 'investigation'. I hope my 'fans' are still reading(can't read minds or see if you if anyone is reading them) and I've only been getting news that more people are story alerting my Revan story. I don't mind if you don't story alert, just something doesn't seem like anyone is reading my story here anymore.

**Mandalorian Translation**: aliit(ah-LEET)- family, clan

Udesii vode!(oo-DAY-see vohd-ay)- Take it easy mates!

vod(vohd)- brother, sister, comrade, 'mate' (depends on context)

Lise mhi ruusaanyc ruyot 'Spectre'?(LEE-say mee roo-SAHN-eesh ROO-yot)- Can we trust the former Spectre?

Su, ni copaani hibira dinui beskar'ad ru mar'eyi(SOO)- Still, I want to learn about the gift the droid found

'Sigma Squad', Mando'ade, mhi kovid at 'Omega'.(Mando-AH-day KOV-eed aht)- Sigma Squad, Mandalorians, head toward Omega.


	16. The Doctor and an Archangel

**A/N: **Sorry for the wait. Like I said on my other story, my mind left me after watching the Revan teaser for the Old Republic MMO. Please imagine volus heavy breathing during Parth's dialog, I'm not sure how to write that without disturbing the flow of the sentence(like that's an issue for them).

* * *

Docking at Omega, Aran had a meeting with Aria, Queen of Omega, alone. Because they had become well respected by Aria, and have completed many tasked given by her, she lets them do almost anything, so long as it doesn't cause too much trouble for Omega or her operations.

Aria was overlooking Afterlife as Aran walk towards her private booth. "I see you're still alive after that mess I sent you into on Ker."

Aran sat down on the couch, "Those slavers needed to be wiped out anyway. So how's our favorite 'Pirate Queen' doing in her palace?"

With her nasty looking smirk she asked, "Is there another 'Pirate Queen' you know of?"

Aran replied with a smile as he sat onto the couch, "Only in our old galaxy. I think the two of you might have gotten along, for about a few weeks."

Aria also sat down onto the couch, "So do you have it?" Aran handed over a datapad. Aria glanced at it for a second and turned to the Mandalorian, "Only twelve percent?"

Aran tried explaining, "It's not like you told us about the bounty or anything, just the system to start looking in."

Aria then glared at him, "IF I don't get at least fifteen percent, then I look like I'm losing my edge. So now I need twenty-five."

Aran tried to bargain with her, "Come on, the bounty wasn't even official. Look, I'll give twenty and it counts as a favor, how about that?"

Aria nodded, "That's acceptable, for now."

Aran then contacted Prath on a relatively open channel, "Prath, _dinui_ Aria _reysh'olan waadas_."

The volus responded a moment after Aran called, "_Shaadla ani_, Araniik."

Aran cut the line and turned back to Aria, "Done. Now I want to ask you about something…odd." Aran saw Aria's face giving him a look that could have deterred a Hutt, "It's about someone who's supposed to be dead."

Aria immediately answered, "Commander Shepard."

Aran leaned forward, "Your spies are more wide spread then I thought."

Aria corrected him, "No, he walked in here a moment ago asking me questions. Brought along a few Cerberus hounds though."

"What kind of questions?"

Aria stood up, "That's going to cost you a favor…"

Aran didn't say anything for a second when he finally nodded, "Fine. So what did Shepard want to know from the Great Aria?"

She had that nasty smirk on her face when Aran said 'Great' but it was barely for a second when she answered the lone Mandalorian, "Nothing special really; information mostly."

Politely, Aran inquired, "Could you give me anything specific? Like who or what."

She turned to look at him, "Well since you asked so nicely, I guess I can tell you and your crew. Shepard didn't ask anything special; about me, Omega and a few other insignificant things. It's who he was looking for that was interesting. The first person he asked about was Mordin Solus. A salarian doctor that moved in some time ago. The other person of interest is your buddy, Archangel."

Aran then thought out loud, "It sounds like he's trying to gather a team of specialist for something big."

Aria shrugged, "As long as Omega's not involved I don't care."

Aran stood up and was starting to walk away as he said, "I guess we'll have to beat him to the punch, might not help Shepard, but at least we can piss Cerberus off."

Aria stopped Aran, "Before you go, Aran, you might want to lose the skirt."

Aran just said, "I've told you, it's a _kama_, a symbol of rank and it helps protect me. And I assume you stopped me to add something else."

"As sharp as ever, huh?" Aria leaned her arm against the couch, "Mordin is in the quarantined zone trying to help plague victims, so try not to bring the plague back and try not to get yourselves added among his patients, or the morgue. And if you haven't already heard, Archangel has been cornered by the local merc groups. The mercs are getting desperate and hiring anyone with a gun. I watched Shepard and the flunkies walk into the private room the mercs are using." Aria then tilled her head to her left to show where.

"Thanks for everything, Aria. I predict a very large drop in the mercenary population in a very short amount of time."

She just laughed, "Remember, as long as they don't work for me I don't care if they die. Just more power for me to grab."

* * *

Back on the Tervho, Aran and the others were reviewing everything Aria had told them. The team was gathered around the briefing room, "So who's going after the salarian and who's going to rescue Archangel?"

Aran had already thought about what to do. "Don't worry about a thing Vren. Forta, Nyona, you two probably know Omega like the back of your hands. The two of you are in charge of finding and extracting Dr. Solus. I'll take Prudii, Kix and Vren and rescue Archangel." Aran then turned to Rang, "So Rang, learn anything from the bug?"

Rang was excited as he told them, "This thing is amazing. A bioengineered cybernetic drone designed to target whatever it's been programmed to hunt. About thirty percent of the time it confused our blood sample for human but other than that, it always went straight for the human sample. Their body is nothing but a neurotoxin storehouse to deliver a sting that can paralyze a human for several hours along with a stasis field that's somehow created from the sting."

Aran stopped him before he explain how he learned that last bit, "Could you find a way to discourage one from stinging or undo the effect altogether?"

Rang had to think about it before he responded. "I'm just a field medic. I'm already over stepping my bounds when I was examining the little bugger. I think Cerberus found another one or something and they probably want the salarian to do his own studies on it."

"Alright then, this bug might have something to do with that Reaper thing we helped kill two years ago. Bev, have you been able to get anything from the Prothean orb we relieved from Cerberus?"

Bev could only shake his head in disgrace, "I'm sorry, sir. I haven't been able to get any data from it yet."

Aran assured his second, "Just keep us posted when you do. The secret to opening it have been lost for centuries, but if anyone can find it's you vod. Alright team, _Oya_!"

* * *

Araniik and the others went into Afterlife to meet with the recruiters. A batarian in Blue Suns armor was there to greet them. Aran casually asked, "This where we sign up for the angel hunt?"

The batarian looked them over for a second then stepped aside, "Why don't you step inside."

Another Blue Suns batarian was standing behind a terminal in the room. "Who's next?" The door opened Aran and his team walked in as a human walked out. "Well you guys look more destructive then that group of three earlier. Are you guys looking for a good fight?"

Araniik asked the batarian, "What other group are you talking about?"

The batarian was trying to remember, "It was a group of three, all humans. One human had scares and wore yellow armor. There was a woman who looked like she shouldn't be fighting but she has the eyes, y'know. The one leading them looked like he was ex-Alliance, had full body armor and…had N7 on his right breastplate."

They all knew who that was, _Shepard._

Vren spoke up, "This is the place to hunt Archangel, right?"

"This is the place." The batarian started tapping on the terminal, "Standard fee is 500 credits each. You get paid when the job's done. If you die, your friends don't collect your share. You need your own weapons and armor…looks like you've got that covered." The batarian stopped entering data on the terminal and looked them face to helmet, "And no, this does not make you a member of the Blue Suns, Eclipse, or the Blood Pack. You are a freelancer. Period."

Prudii asked, "Where to?"

The batarian pointed behind him, "Just head over to the transport depot outside the club. One of our boys will take you from there. Send in the next one."

* * *

With Aran and the others already gone, Nyona had used her contacts to good use. "…So the district has been quarantined due to a plague that can jump the species barrier. Only ones not affected are humans and the vorcha." Nyona's disgust for the vorcha was on par to that of Aria's, viewing them as nothing more than nuisances and vermin.

Rang couldn't help himself when he uttered, "No natural virus or disease can cross that barrier. Turians are on a completely different scale then most lifeforms for crying out loud! This has to be lab grown."

Nyona continued, "And that's why most think that this plague was created by humans."

"That doesn't make sense." Forta continued, "Sure an Alliance lab might be able to create such a thing if the Conventions were nonexistent, but to create it on Omega, that's not right. The facility had to be sterile and the staff following all safety procedures, here on Omega I doubt you can find any of that in one place. It's true that humans could have developed the plague but someone, or something, with plenty of resources did this."

Rang then pointed out, "Well whatever made it, most of us will have to carry an extra 5.5 kilograms to do this one."

Rasen was a bit confused, "I thought our suits can be sealed? Why do we need the extra weight?"

Beviin tried to explain, "The Republic has specialized variants of our armor when we need to go into extreme conditions. On average, our suits can provide twenty-to-thirty minutes of breathable air. We don't know if this plague can affect us but we don't plan on taking any chances."

Rang added on, "I'm sure if this Mordin guy is as smart as you say Ny, then you and Forta could be cured by him if you get the plague, if Bev or I get it he's going to have to run test, do a full examination, and I'd rather not have to stay down there for that long."

Rasen noted about quarian suits, "Our suits are designed to filter out every know germ, toxin, parasite, and allergens, unless it's breached. But the likely hood of that is significantly less with the armor you made for us." Rasen then thought about Sigma Squad's time on the Idenna, "Wait, can't your suits also filter out toxins as well?"

Rang looked to Bev then turned back to answer Rasen, "Ours can but we'd rather not take the risk just the same. At any rate we aren't entirely human, relative to this galaxy I mean."

Nyona just wanted to finish up on Omega as soon as they could. "Fine, set up your gear with air tanks if you want. Just make it quick."

Rang stepped in again, "Before we start the mutilation lets know who you want to go on this crazy mission? I don't want to end up ruining two good suits for a situation we'd only go through once maybe twice."

Rasen jokingly said, "Well, if either of you go, I'm going too. Someone has to make sure neither of you get into trouble while Prudii and Aran are gone."

Rang sarcastically responded to her, "Gee, thanks 'mom', I need someone to hold my hand when I want to kill something."

Most of the crew had learned to ignore Rang when he acted like that, though occasionally some of the crew did laugh when he was actually funny. Forta turned to Nyona, "Nyona, do you know this district? I've only visited Mordin's clinic about twice five years ago and I deleted the map."

Nyona couldn't help but sigh, "Yeah…I know the district. It's where I use to live…before I worked for Aria."

Bev the determined, "Nyona has to go, Rang would probably have more to talk about with Dr. Solus, Forta do you plan to join them?"

Forta closed his four eyes and took a deep breath, "I joined so I didn't have to look back. I would like not to go but if asked I won't refuse."

Bev turned to Tare, "How about you Tare? You want to explore more of Omega?"

Tare was still steam at Cerberus and what happened to Prazza, "I want to vent some steams. I want to go if we end up having to kill anything, Bev."

Rang knew not to say anything, so he turned to the volus, "Prath, estimate how much it would cost for the air tank and other essentials, please."

The volus had a datapad on hand and was pressing several buttons, "From the current Omega economy, the average items needed would end up costing roughly…3,500 credits per system. But going through the black market and estimating for minor repairs it would cost about 3,000 credits, though I'd check the tubes and the air supply before you leave."

_This situation seems familiar. _Out of the blue Rang remembered something, "Hang on!" Rang had ran off to grab his pack. He rummaged through his explosives tossing them to nearby crew, "Nope. Hold these will you guys. Try not to trigger them. Come on it should be in here if I remember correctly. Ah ha!" Rang had pulled out a piece that looked like it could attach to the commando's helmet.

The others could see Bev was a bit mad, "Where'd you get that?"

Rang asked, "Remember when we helped General Amersu, the turquoise Twi'lek, in her first battle as a General?" Bev had to think a bit for all of the missions they had partaken in during the Clone Wars. After a moment Beviin nodded still giving Rang a stern look. "I forget the name of the planet, but we had to infiltrate the poison filled base, clean the air for the General and her demo team. After we did that I took off the rebreather and stashed it in my pack. Thing barely weighs a thing or took up much space so I never noticed I still had it. The only reason I just remembered was because that district is filled with toxins and we plan on going in."

Beviin was still peeved at Rang, "Those are property of the Republic! You were supposed to return them after we were on board the Judgment!"

"Yeah, but instead I went straight to the armory to load up on grenades, breach chargers, and ammo." Rang was gathering all the explosives he just tossed out, "Well now all we have to do is chose between the two of us who would…"

Beviin stopped him, "We both know that between the two of us, you're going. Don't lie to me or yourself, Rang. I'll watch over the ship while you guys are gone."

"Alright." Rang and Bev grasped each other's hand and shock heavy.

"Don't die on me out there."

Rang could only laugh, "Come on bro, I've lived this long, I don't plan on dying in a pit like this. No, my ideal death would be in a bed surrounded by lovely asari and women at the tender old age of one hundred plus." Rang was joking of course, as he wished to die on the battlefield alongside his brothers against overwhelming odds. "I'll try bringing you a sword if I find one in an empty apartment."

* * *

The Blue Suns had driver them to an out of the way area of Omega that normally didn't see much too any traffic. Another batarian in Blue Suns armor was waiting for them. "Good, another group that looks like they can actually fight. We might be able to rely on you freelancers after all. So you know what you're up against?"

Aran really didn't want to talk to the batarian so he just said, "Just point us in the right direction."

The batarian looked behind himself, "Archangel's holed up in a building at the end of the boulevard over there. He's got superior position, and the only way in is over a very exposed bridge. It's a killing ground. But he's getting tired, making mistakes. We'll have him soon enough."

Aran said, "Now that the four of us are on the scene, we'll reach Archangel."

The batarian disagreed, "No need. We already have set up so you don't have to worry about anything. A small team is waiting to infiltrate his hideout, but we need to draw Archangel's fire so they can move in."

Kix saw where this was going, "And that's our job then, right?"

The batarian continued, "Exactly, you'll be part of a distraction team. Head straight over the bridge and keep Archangel busy so the infiltration team can sneak in behind him.

As a sniper, Prudii knew what this meant and he didn't like it, "Suicidal."

The batarian couldn't do anything but agree, "Pretty much. But you look like you can handle it, like the group before you. Head up to the boulevard and get to the third barricade. Talk to Sergeant Cathka. He'll tell you when to go in."

Aran decided to just move on, "We'll find the sergeant then."

"Good idea." The batarian warned them, "Watch yourself out on the boulevard. Archangel's killed dozens out there already." Then he left.

Prudii still didn't like any of it. "In is easy. Out…difficult."

Aran turned to his brother, "Hey vod, this is nothing to the trouble back with the Republic. We can make it through and get to Archangel."

Moving on, the Mandalorians encountered the first merc group, the Eclipse, "It looks like you Mandoarions, or whatever you call yourselves, are in troubled times to accept such a small contract."

Aran corrected the salarian, "We're Mandalorians. And we're here to clean up the mess you and the other can't, Jaroth. It must be as bad I thought if you three are willing to work together and hire freelancers to do your job."

Jaroth was visibly angry but he was keeping his attitude in line, "Tarak's plan, not mine. He doesn't want to lose any more men, so he's throwing you freelancers at the problem. Archangel's not going anywhere, so I suppose there's no harm in trying."

Vren still didn't like any of the three merc groups, "So your plan is to hide and cower while we take down Archangel for you?"

Jaroth adjusted himself on his chair and turned to the krogan, "No. You're paid to be a distraction. Nothing more. Whether you survive or not is up to you."

Aran knew where his anger lied, as they were there when it happened, "Still mad at Archangel for killing your brother, I see."

Jaroth angrily responded to Aran, "Of course I mad! What would you do if one of your brothers was killed by him, hmm?"

Aran knew exactly what he'd do as he looked at Prudii, "If Archangel did fire the kill shot, then yes, I'd want revenge too but I'd never work with the Blue Suns or Blood Pack."

Jaroth once thought like that, "But it is a temporary partnership, one that may prove more beneficial than expected. Now, do you plan on asking me anything else like that other freelancer or not?"

Aran could only assume Shepard, Zaeed and the Cerberus woman from Freedom's Progress came through the area. "Nothing else. We'll leave you gents to your discussion."

* * *

**A/N: **Jaroth's mis-saying of the word Mandalorian was to show that Sigma Squad and their team have made ripples in the galaxy that has some normal people afraid of them. You'll see more of what I mean later and with the other merc bosses. I forgot to mention about Sigma Squad's ship habits. Araniik's a bit liberal when it come to wearing their armor on the ship, especially for crewmembers that need flexibility. Saying that most of their cloths are similar to what the police or crew from the Normandy(I & II) wear. Vren and Prudii, like Wrex, opt to wear their armor on the ship. Occasionally Aran will make it mandatory for everyone to wear their Mandalorian armor. Don't yell at me for using ME2 lines but hey they're there and I'm using them. I'll try to tweak it later on so it doesn't sound like they're with Shepard. Also the only reason they know Zaeed is because they had worked with him once. I know that some might argue about Rang conveniently in possession of a 'stolen' rebreather but hey this is my story and they laid their case out, they don't know how long they'll be in the district so the more breathable air the better.

**Mandalorian Translation: '**Prath'**, **dinui 'Aria' reysh'olan waadas.(DEE-noo-EE _RAYSH-oh-lahn WAH-daas)- Prath, give Aria five hundred credits.

Shaadla ani Araniik(SHAHD'lar AH-nee ah-RAHN-eek)- Transfer complete, Araniik.

Kama(KAH-ma)- belt-spat

Oya!(OY-ah!)- Many meanings: literally "Let's hunt!" and also "Stay alive!", but also "Hoorah!", "Go you!", "Cheers!" Always positive and triumphant.


	17. Divide and Conquer

**A/N: **Another long wait, sorry. Work first, personal time second(wish that could be reversed). Sigma Squad intervenes in the Professor and Archangel recruitment missions...

* * *

Continuing past the Eclipse, the stench of vorcha was getting stronger, which meant they were getting closer to the Blood Pack and their local leader, Garm. Even Kix could feel the tension come off of Vren. "Are you going to be alright krogan, or do you need to sit out of this fight?"

Even with his helmet, Vren still kept his cool, "I'll be fine, turian. Just make sure you kill all of your targets when you see them."

Passing through a second door a door in front of them suddenly opened. A group of vorcha were leaving to help reinforce a bulkhead, when a krogan in heavy Blood Pack armor spotted them. "Well if isn't the clanless loser, and he's with a turian."

Vren acknowledged the Blood Pack leader, "Ganar Garm. Still playing with your vorcha I see."

The others could see the hate on Garm's face but he was saving it for Archangel, "At least I don't pretend I'm part of a clan. Now do you need something, Manda-somethings, or are you just wasting my time."

This time Vren was the one who corrected someone, "It's Mandalorians, you di'kut. And you're the one who insulted us first or are you starting to develop memory problems?"

Aran steeped in before Garm could respond, "We better get going and meet up with Cathka. I'm sure they want to start the assault soon."

* * *

At the same time Araniik and the other reached Kima District, Rang, Tare, Rasen and Nyona were off to find Dr. Mordin Solus.

Nyona had led the others to the entrance of Gozu District. At the entrance, they watch a scene unfold as a woman was arguing with a turian guard. "I told you to get lost, lady! The plague has the whole zone quarantined! Nobody gets in!"

The woman tried to convince the guard, "I'm human, you ass! Humans can't get the plague! Now let me get my stuff out before looters get it!"

The turian wasn't going to listen to her as he said, "This thing affects every other race out there! We're not taking chances. Nobody gets in until the plague has run its course."

Rang moved ahead of the others to get to the turian first, "Hey, Joran! How've you been buddy?"

The turian responded immediately, "Rang, is that you? I couldn't recognize you with your armor on. What's it been two, three months now?"

Rang laughed, "Give me some credit pal. It's only been about two and a half months at most."

Tare usually stayed on the Tervho when they visited Omega, "How do you know this turian, Rang?"

Rang explained, "I met him at one of Aria's parties for her employees. Figured making friends with some of Aria's people would come in handy. So Aria's got you on guard duty for the quarantine huh? Say could you let us though? We're looking for someone and we're kind of in a hurry too."

Joran explained the situation to Rang, "Sorry Rang, no can do, even for you. We have orders. And our orders are to wait until either the plague or the Blue Suns kill everyone, then go in and clean up."

"Then I hope Aria plans on providing gas masks or tombstones." Nyona made herself known to Joran.

Joran knew who she was the moment she said that, "Nyona? So, you did leave Omega like you said you would. You're working with Rang I see."

"Are you going to let us in now Joran, or do I have to prove it's really me?"

The turian didn't say anything for a moment then he said, "Alright, you use to be able to clean up these kinds of things for Aria in the past. I'd rather not have to mess with my old boss. And from what I've heard, Rang, you guys can handle yourselves. Truthfully the quarantine is more to keep infected people in, anyway. I'll radio ahead, tell them you're coming in."

The woman was still hanging around as she heard it, "Wait, you're stopping me but not them? You son of a bitch!"

Joran turned to the human, "You're not with the Mandalorians so I suggest you just leave."

The woman stuttered, "M-M-Mandalorians! The group that came out of nowhere and have completing every contract they accepted? The same Mandalorians that have never let a single bounty get out of their hands?"

Rang proudly pointed to himself, "The one and only! Don't forget we're also have been known to rescue said bounty if the hunt came from Blood Pack or someone just a vile."

The woman then left the area without another word. Joran was grateful, "Well that's one less problem I have to deal with."

Rang turned to the others as he said, "OK, time to seal our suits and dive head first into a quarantined zone. Glad Bev let me barrow his thermal scanner for this mission."

Past a hallway they started seeing makeshift walls and barricades. They turn to a fairly defensible built-up wall when a pair of turians popped out with assault rifles. Before they fired or Rang and the others could pull out their weapons, one of the turians said, "Don't shoot. They're cleared to come in."

They worked their way around the barrier through a side passageway where a third turian was guarding a door. As Nyona opened it the turian said, "Good luck in there. The Blue Suns and vorcha are shooting anything that moves."

Past the door and down the stairs, they spotted two Blue Suns talking. The two had not spotted them yet. Rang stopped everyone at the stairway, "Another shining moment for yours truly." Rang then activated his omni-tool. _Adjust the damage/radius ratio to catch both in the blast then…_ Rang kept to the wall, as he readied his DC-17m anti-armor, with one hand. _The timing has to be perfect if I want at least one to…_ Targeting the left Sun, he launched an Incinerate tech fire ball. He waited three seconds then fired an anti-armor round, arching it to land at the feet of the two mercs. The moment the plasma ball caught the mercs on fire, they tried to pat out the fires by hand. Their shields took most of the damage and that's what Rang wanted. Soon after, the anti-armor round exploded at their feet killing both instantaneously and launching one of them into a pill of burning bodies.

Nyona moved up to survey the area. After a few sweeps, she signaled all clear. They moved up, keeping an eye out for anything. As they looked, they found two pills of burning corpses. Rang couldn't help noting, "Basic plague control procedure; pile the bodies and burn 'em hoping to burn out the plague."

Nyona was unfazed by the site, as she had done worse when she was working for Aria. Thanks to Sigma Squad's help, Tare had gotten over his fears but this scene was still heavy. Rasen could only say, "I'm glad our suits can filter out odors."

Tare continued on so he didn't have to continue seeing the bodies. He found a lone batarian, leaning against a wall. "Rang, _ni ru mar'eyi cuyan_."

Everyone was gathered near the batarian but the batarian was waving a pistol at them. "Human. I should have guessed." He then started to cough. "Bad enough you infect us with this plague. Now you lack the decency to even wait until I die before you come to steal my possessions."

Rang began looking at himself, "Really? You sure I might not be batarian in this armor. But seriously though, I'm not human, I'm a Mandalorian." Rang then tried to help the sick batarian, "Let me help you…"

The batarian then started waving a heavy pistol at Rang, "Get away from me, human! Your kind has done too much already! Your plague did this to me. You feigned pity is the final insult."

Nyona demanded from the dying batarian, "Just tell us where Mordin is."

The batarian couldn't see past their tinted visors, "Humans looking for human sympathizer. I hope the vorcha burn Mordin's clinic to the ground. I hope you…I hope…Damn it. Damn you."

Rang saved the batarian before he succumbed to the virus. "Hang on dude! This defiantly won't cure you, but you should be fine for a few hours before the pain comes back."

The sick batarian slowly got himself back on his feet. "You…you helped me. Why?"

Rang told the sick batarian, "It's what we do. If the doc is as smart as I think he is, then he should have a cure and I'll ask him to send someone to help you."

"Thank you. My time is running short, but at least you have given me a flicker of hope to brighten the darkness of my final hours. I don't want to die. Whatever Mordin is, I will risk it, if he can reach me."

Nyona asked the batarian again, "So where is Mordin Solus?"

The batarian pointed behind himself, "He has a clinic on the far side of the district. He's taking in refugees. Offering to help those infected with the plague. I was afraid to go to him before. He's dangerous. But perhaps he can help."

Tare asked the batarian, "Why are you so afraid of Mordin that you'd rather die from the plague?"

Still coughing, the batarian explained, "The Blue Suns tried to press him for protection money. He killed them. Stunned them with some kind of toxin, then gunned them down. He's just a doctor. Doctors don't execute people and display the bodies as a warning."

Out of curiosity, Rasen asked the batarian, "So, why are you convinced that humans are behind this virus?"

"The plague is too potent to be a naturally occurring virus. Airborne transmission across numerous species? Near-perfect mortality rate? It had to be created in a lab. And since humans are the only species not affected, there is only one logical conclusion." The batarian was fully convinced of that.

Nyona spoke her mind, "What about the damn vorcha? They're immune to diseases and viruses. They might be spreading the plague so they can take over the district."

"A human-created plague wouldn't affect them. But if the vorcha created the plague, why wouldn't it affect humans? Besides, the vorcha aren't smart enough to make a virus like this. They're scavengers. Sorry human. You may not want to believe it, but all the evidence points to your species." At this point, Nyona was tempted to remove her helmet but her time with Sigma had also cooled her temper down.

Rang turned to the others, "Alright, let's go. Let's see if we can find more survivors."

Rasen opened a door they had ignored to help the batarian. Inside they found powercells for Rang's AA rounds. The next door inside was locked. With ease Rasen had opened the door only to find two dead turians on the ground. Rang could see the claw marks around the door, "Poor bastard tried to claw their way out."

* * *

Back at Kima District, Aran and the others watched as a large group of freelancers hopped over a barricade leading to Archangel's hideout. "Well Mandalorians, it's show time."

They ran to get to the barricade and while doing so, they spotted Shepard, Zaeed and the Cerberus woman they met at Freedom's Progress jump over just before them. Soon as they jumped over Shepard and his team, with some assistance from Archangel, were plowing through the freelancers. Kix couldn't help noticing they haven't fired a single shot yet. "Well that helps us save our ammo for the real problems."

They stayed away far enough not to be detected by Shepard's radar but close enough to see the carnage he was doing to the infiltration team. With the last freelancer down, Shepard and his team enter the room Archangel was sealed in. The blue armored turian turned to look at them for a second then returned to his sniper rifle. Shepard saw the fully armored turian as he asked, "Archangel?"

The turian gave him a finger gesture with his left hand, one moment, as he waited with his sniper rifle. A cowardly freelancer inched out of hiding behind a column only to get headshot by Archangel. Aran and the others had just walked in as well. Prudii, from sniper to sniper, said, "Clean kill."

The Cerberus woman was the first to turn to them demanding, "What are you doing here?"

Kix responded to her, "We're helping out an associate of ours out of trouble. We should be the ones asking what you're doing here Cerberus."

Zaeed had worked with Sigma Squad and Vren in the past. "Well, look at this. This is just my day for goddamn reunions. So are you guys going to turn on the mercs like us or are we going to have to fight?"

While they were all talking, Archangel had moved himself over to a crate, after removing his helmet, and rested one foot on a low table. "Sigma Squad, Mandalorians…So I guess I won't be dying today." The turian then acknowledge Shepard's presents, "Shepard. I thought you were dead."

Shepard was both surprised and glad, "Garrus! What are you doing here?"

Garrus casually and jokingly told his friend, "Just keeping my skills sharp. A little target practice."

Concerned Shepard asked, "You okay?"

Still not fully taking the situation seriously Garrus replied, "Been better, but it sure is good to see a friendly face and a group of helmets I can trust. Killing mercs is hard work. Especially on my own."

Curious Shepard asked, "How'd you manage to piss off every major merc organization in the Terminus Systems?"

The beaten turian replied, "It wasn't easy. I _really_ had to work at it. I'm amazed that they teamed up to fight me. They must really hate me."

Prudii added, "Not only you."

Garrus laughed, "That's right. You and your new associates did help us out a few times."

Kix, being blunt as ever, noticed something missing. "I don't see anyone else. So the body bags down stairs…"

Even for a turian they could see Garrus' sadness, "Yeah…"

Shepard tried changing the mood by asking another question, "Since when did you start calling yourself Archangel."

Garrus replied to his friend, "It's just a name the locals gave me. For all my good deeds. I don't mind it, but please…it's just 'Garrus' to you."

Continuing his questions, Shepard then asked, "What are you doing out here on Omega?"

Garrus looked down when he answered, "I got fed up with all the bureaucratic crap on the Citadel. Figured I could do more good on my own." He looked back up, "At least it's not hard to find criminals here. All I have to do is point my gun and shoot."

Shepard then said, "Well, we got here, but I don't think getting out will be as easy."

Garrus got up, "No, it won't. That bridge has saved my life…funneling all those witless idiots into scope." Pointing towards the bridge, "But it works both ways. They'll slaughter us if we try to get out that way."

The Cerberus woman said, "So we just sit here and wait for them to take us out?"

Garrus answered, "It's not all that bad. This place has held them off so far." Garrus moved towards the window overlooking the bridge and the others followed behind him, "And with the seven of you…" stopped, "I suggest we hold this location, wait for a crack in their defenses, and take our chances. Not a perfect plan, but it's a plan."

Aran said, "I promised Aria a major drop in the merc population. And I believe my krogan friend here wants to remove some Blood Pack. We're all in on the plan, Shepard?"

Shepard replied to Aran, "All right, let's get ready. They'll be here soon."

Garrus knew all too well, "Yeah. That, they will." Garrus, Aran, Shepard, Kix and Prudii moved to the window, "Let's see what they're up to…" Garrus used his sniper rifle to scout the area. "Hmm…looks like they know their infiltration team failed. Take a look." Garrus handed his sniper to Shepard. Kix pulled out his while Aran and Prudii switched their DCs to sniper, "Scouts. Eclipse, I think."

As the four of them looked, they watched as four LOKI mechs jump down from the barricade. Shepard shot the furthest one while the Mandalorians shot down the others. Shepard handed Garrus his sniper rifle back, "More than scouts."

Kix added, "Four less now though."

Garrus stretched his shoulders, "Indeed. We better get ready. I'll stay up here. I can do a lot of damage from this vantage point. You…you can do what you do best. Just like old times, Shepard."

With Cerberus around they couldn't speak Mandalorian that was obvious in the open. Aran then ordered through their helmet channels, "Prudii, Kix, taylir ibic bral. Vren _bal ni ven tayli diryci kajil. Ke'nu dinui aru'e olaro gebba_ Garrus!"

* * *

As Nyona continued to lead the others through her old neighborhood, they had found another plague victim, a dead batarian locked in his room. They also cleared a group of Blue Suns trying to defend their dwindling territory.

"Man, the Blues are getting desperate."

Tare turned to Rang after he made sure about his kill, "What do you mean?"

Rang reloaded an AA round and switched the DC to assault rifle settings. "Well our buir taught us a lot about psychological warfare and other psychological areas. This is a basic intimidation strategy; if you're losing turf or power from losing lots of people or whatever, you show your dominance. This case, kill anyone they see."

Nyona couldn't help but scoff, "Well they didn't know who they were dealing with."

Rang then said, "No one expect much from quarians in a fight, no offense, and we still don't know much about you, Nyona."

Nyona looked around the plaza and couldn't help but flash back to when she was a little girl playing though the area with her long dead friends, most from old age. Getting out of her trip down memory lane, she had Rang filling her view, "…Nyona? Hey are you listening? We're moving on, or do you plan on staying around here a bit longer?"

Nyona shook herself out, "No, let's go. Just old memories…"

Rang was always more of a people person then his brothers, "Now, now, don't tell me none of those memories were good one. I talked with Vren, he told me you were once a sweet girl before you became a cold…well you know, working for Aria." Rang shrugged, "Sure being a cold heartless kill helps in our line of work, but…" he turned to look at Rasen and Tare, "with us, you can show more of that sweet girl around us. Not when we're fighting people, I mean back on the ship. I'm sure some of the crew wouldn't mind that from you, from time to time."

Rasen then shouted, "Hey guys, I found another locked door. Rang, do you think you can see if anyone's alive inside?"

"I'll be right there." Rang turned back to Nyona, "Just something to think about before we get back." Jokingly he added, "Or you could not listen to me like usual and pretend this conversation never happened, like me talking with Vren about you." At the door, Rang activated his medical scanners and the thermal scanner. It took a few scans but it penetrated the walls. "Two life signs. Humans. I'll take lead on this one." Everyone had put away their weapons with Rang shouting, "Hello? We know you're in here. Come on, we're not with the Blue Suns or the vorcha."

From around the corner and up a small flight of stairs a man and woman appear from behind a small book case. The woman could only express relief when she didn't see a turian. "Oh, thank god! You're human!"

The man told them, "When we saw that door open, we thought those turians had found us. Ever since this damn plague started, the Blue Suns have been out to get us. They're killing as many people as the disease."

Rang rubbed it in, "Told ya the Blues were getting desperate."

The woman said, "But we didn't do anything! Pretty much every non-human in the district wants us dead!"

The man continued, "They think we caused the plague. Humans aren't getting sick, and that's all the evidence they need. God knows how many of us they've already killed."

The woman added, "They should be looking at the vorcha, not us! Ever since the plague hit, they've been taking over Blue Suns territory."

Rasen and Tare came from around the corner and the two humans started getting nervous, "What are they?"

Rang then told them, "Look, we may not have the same colors on our armor but we are on the same team. Also, I've never heard of any quarians who out right hates anyone for no good reason."

Rasen asked, "You said the vorcha moved in just after the plague hit?"

The woman was visibly nervous but she still answered, "Right after the district was quarantined. Vorcha are immune to diseases, so they're not getting sick."

The man confessed, "Not sure where they came from; never saw many vorcha around before. Sure seemed like they were ready for this."

The woman then added, "Only nobody thinks the vorcha are smart enough to create a virus like this. The Blue Suns need someone else to blame. Like us."

Nyona corrected her, "They're not smart enough, human. Damn grubs are nothing more than scavengers and walking shields for their masters."

The woman hesitantly asked, "You…you're not human?"

Nyona rudely replied, "I'm an asari. Otherwise I wouldn't be wearing the helmet."

Tare tried to bring the conversation back, "You said the vorcha were taking over Blue Suns territory?"

The man answered, "Trying to. The Blue Suns don't go down easy. The plague softened 'em up, but they still have enough firepower to hold some of their turf. The turians are getting pushed back. The deeper you go into the district, the more vorcha you'll see…unless they see you first."

Rang's medical instincts started showing when he asked, "What else can you tell us about the plague? When did it start? Any known symptoms?"

The man told everything he knew, "The first cases cropped up about two weeks ago. Nobody paid much attention until it started to spread. Usually take about a week to kill you. But it spreads fast. Three days after the first outbreak, there were over fifty known cases."

Then the woman noted, "That's when everyone noticed humans weren't getting sick. Then the quarantine came down, and everything went to hell."

Still impatient, Nyona said, "We need to find Mordin Solus."

The man insolently told them, "Oh, yeah. Him. He's got a clinic on the other side of the district."

The woman also told them about a rumor, "Heard he's taking in refugees now. Trying to help plague victims. Offering protection from the Suns and the vorcha."

The man ridiculed her, "Sure. A doctor with military-grad mechs helping people for free. On Omega? Grow up."

Rasen questioned the human's opinion, "Sounds like you don't think much of the doctor and his clinic."

The man stated, "The vorcha tried to muscle in-he gunned them down, just like that. Pop, pop, pop. Didn't even use his mechs."

The woman continued, "Then the Blue Suns heard he was sheltering humans, and they went to burn down the clinic. He killed them, too. Then he went inside and got back to work. He's cold. Must be salarian special forces or something."

Tare tried reasoning with them, "You can't stay trapped in this apartment. If you get to Mordin's, you might at least survive until the quarantine ends."

The woman could only argue with the young quarian, "Are you nuts? We'd never make it. The streets are crawling with Blue Suns and vorcha. We don't even have pistols!"

The man agreed with her, "Besides, I'm not risking my life on a rumor that some salarian might offer me sanctuary."

Rang turned to the others, "You all have done at least one escort job, right?" Everyone nodded to Rang. "Good. We'll escort the two of you to Mordin's. Normally we'd ask for hundred fifty credits plus equipment fee, but only if we don't like the client. Since we are planning on going there anyway, let's just call it a courtesy escort." Rang still saw they didn't like the idea. "As long as you listen and stay close to my quarian buddy here," wrapping his arm around Tare's neck, "you'll make it to the clinic alive."

* * *

**A/N: **I always thought it would be easier if Shepard had just taken the two refugees with him, all he had to do was tell them to stay down when they started fighting. At least when I play that mission I take advantage of the balcony area, sniping the damn vorcha. I didn't liked the fact that the two refugees never acknowledged Garrus or Grunt if they were there. Also why wouldn't Garrus, Grunt or any other alien crewmember wear their helmets in the quarantined zone. I mean protection, protection, protection right? Example: In KOTOR II we had to enter an area filled with poisonous gases, to humans, to save ourselves we used a pressure suit, the Force power Breath Control or at the very least wore a breathing mask. Next chapter is going to be nothing but fighting.

**Mandalorian Translation:** ni ru mar'eyi cuyan(nee roo mah-AY-ee koo-YAHN)- I found a survivor

'Vren' bal ni ven taylir dirycir kajil.(bahl nee vehn TIE-leer DEER-ee-SHEER KAH-jeel)- Vren and I will hold the lower level.

Ke'nu dinui aru'e olaro gebba Garrus!(Keh-NOO DEE-noo-EER ah-ROO-ay oh-LAR-ohr GEB-arr)- Don't let the enemy come close to Garrus!


	18. Vermin Control

**A/N: **This wait has more weight than those that came before. I am making this as I go but recently, my uncle(not blood related but close enough) had passed away two days after Fable 3, Force Unleashed 2 and the whole slew of games. Here's the next piece...

* * *

Before they left the apartment, Rang told their tagalongs, "Stay close, watch the signals, listed to my buddy Tare and we'll all get to the clinic in one piece."

Nyona scouted ahead as she remembered these streets like the back of her hand. As she passed a dead turian in Blue Suns armor, she could hear a battle going on nearby. Nyona peered back around the corner and signaled them over. With that they all moved cautiously ahead. Rasen saw the turian and asked, "Your kill or the plagues?"

Nyona shock her head, "No, bullet wounds. It looks like vorcha. Unless the Blues are turning on each other like they did to the other two turians. But this isn't what's worrying me, this is…"

She let everyone listen for a few seconds before Rang understood. "Sounds like someone's having a party up ahead. I think we should crash it."

Nyona was in complete agreement, "Unless the district went under heavy remodeling in the past century, then instead of joining on ground level, we could instead have a better view upstairs. Only problem would be the two stairways. We could lock the door to the way we go in, leaving only the open stairway."

Rang couldn't agree more, "Too bad Kix or Prudii aren't here. Sniping is their specialty." Rang keep his voice down, "You heard our blue leader, let's go!"

With the others going up the stairs Rasen was locking the door from their side. Rasen with them Nyona stared giving orders, "Tare and the two humans stay in that stairway, out of sight. Rasen hid behind that pillar and shotgun anyone climbing those stairs. Rang, how good are you with that sniper rifle?"

Rang confessed, "Compared to Prudii, terrible. I can hit a standing target just fine or if I can keep up with their speed but I need time if they're moving."

Nyona switched weapons, "Good, because we need long barrels to hid from the Blues below us." Everyone was in their designated areas as Nyona and Rang lined up their shots. "Got the pyro in your scope?"

Rang was uncomfortable without having the wall to lean against but he found a way. "I got one of its canisters, not its head."

"On my mark." Nyona then counted down with fingers from three. Two. One. "Mark." Both shots penetrated their intended targets as both vorcha ran from cover trying to remove the burning canisters only to catch three more vorcha in their explosions.

One of the Blues spotted one of the sniper rifles that did that. "Hey, do you think we have reinforcements?"

The other turian continued to fire his shotgun at a varren approaching him, "No way, the others are too stretched out to send anyone to us. You heard what the boss said, 'Kill anyone not with the Blue Suns.' After we deal with these Blood Pack, we deal with them."

The first turian was confused, "But they might be here to save our asses. Can't we just let them slide?"

The other turian returned to cover, "Unless you want to deal with Tarak when he returns from finishing Archangel then be my guest." The first turian was silent for several seconds before he turned his attention back to the Blood Pack.

* * *

Araniik and the others were tearing through the LOKI mechs as they continued to march across the bridge. As the Eclipse mercs started to show up, Aran couldn't help commenting to Prudii, "I wish a Trando was here, he'd love this situation."

Prudii simply grunted in agreement as he sniped a heavy and an engineer. Kix was doing fine as well, only having trouble when the cowards hid behind a downed X3M or one of the pillars. While fighting, the Mandalorians completely ignored the presence of Cerberus as they continued to cut down the Eclipse mercs.

Jaroth showed up to view the battle, only to watch as one of his Eclipses in front of him got sniped down by Archangel, "If you want something done properly…" Jaroth then contacted some of his men, "All right. Let's see how you handle this, Archangel." A mobile crane came out and dropped off a folded YMIR. Jaroth then signaled, "Go!"

The YMIR opened up and after it finished changing it shouted, "Online."

Garrus radioed to the others, "Damn it. They're sending out the heavy mechs."

Aran shouted to his men, "Mandalorians, you know the drill. Let's kill this bastard fast!"

Shepard stopped them, "That problem should take care of itself." They all waited a moment. Then they noticed that as the next group of Eclipse started jumping over the barrier, the YMIR started firing at them.

Kix gave a short laugh, "They send in the heavy only for it to turn on them. Hope this lasts until the Blues decide to attack." Even with the YMIR turning on the Eclipse, Prudii was lining up the mech's head into his scope. Kix watched him as he radioed the others, "Floor team, be advised, Prudii's looking at the mech and I think he can see the head." With that Vren and Araniik fell back behind into the lower level of the complex.

* * *

The two Blue Suns, with the help of Nyona and Rang, had taken down a varren and two more vorcha. A krogan Blood Pack warrior had come around the other side of the street. Nyona was focused on the vorcha as she thought to herself, _I should have killed these things myself instead of letting Gavorn have all of the fun._

Rang couldn't stop noticing all of the difficulties he was having, "How can Prudii shoot so many and so fast? I mean this is fun its own rights but, where's the pizzazz, the catchy flashes that make me want to capture the moment forever, that or laps into a temporary seizure without proper protection, I forget which."

Rasen was keeping a better eye on the situation as she watched the krogan move to the Blue Suns. The krogan blasted one of the turians with a powerful carnage. The other turian tried to get a drop on the krogan, only to have a group of vorcha gun him down. Rasen yelled at Nyona and Rang, "We have a problem. Our Blue Suns 'friends' are done."

Rang and Nyona looked down, "Ah crap…Ras, time to switch." Rasen took the opportunity to smack the back of Rang's helmet for calling her Ras while switching positions. "Everyone's a critic." Hiding behind the pillar, Rang switched for his LJ-50. Rang waited for when the krogan had to reload when he launched an Incinerate tech attack. The fire burned through most of the krogan's armor with Nyona ripping through the rest with her Warp. Unprotected, Rang fired the LJ at the krogan's head. The initial impact made the krogan straggle back, but due to krogan resilience, he had moved into it the energy before the energy blasted out. When the energy did blast, the forces scrambled the krogan's organs killing him instantaneously. "I kinda wished we could have seen his head and some of his organs pop."

Rasen then cut into Rang's little wish, "Sorry to burst your bubble, but there's another krogan incoming and we still have vorcha down below."

Nyona was in another flashback when she was younger, alone in these streets pretending she was living on the Citadel. She forced herself out of her memory as she took the head off a vorcha. Rang still had to wait a few seconds before he could launch another Incinerate and the krogan was approaching fast on them.

* * *

Zaeed, Kix, Garrus and Prudii had kept the YMIR from being completely destroyed by the Eclipse but the YMIR had finally regained its original programming and turned towards them. The moment the head was in view, Prudii was waiting. He fired his last round on the clip, destroying the head and still hitting an Eclipse merc behind the mech, in the head. Any sane being would try to get as far away from an exploding YMIR, especially one that was about to overload, but the Eclipse were being threatened by Jaroth that if any of them retreated he'd kill them himself. The Eclipse tried to out run the blast but most of them were caught in the explosion and those that did make it were greeted with a shotgun or a vibroblade to the throat.

Jaroth himself finally hopped over to the bridge. Vren and Aran didn't need to see it, as they both started to work their way back up stairs. While Prudii switched weapons, Zaeed took the first shoot at the lone salarian. Garrus took down his shield and part of his armor. Kix destroyed the armor and with everything ready, Prudii made the kill shot with a charged shot from his bowcaster, pinning the salarian's head to the bridge. With all of the Eclipse in the area dead, Garrus radioed to Shepard, "Looks like that's all of them. Come find me before they regroup."

Aran and Vren were already in the room when Garrus called. "Looks like you guys had fun." Prudii doesn't respond as usual but he nodded to show he's adrenaline was pumping for a moment.

Kix reloaded his Mantis rifle, "I wish more of our jobs were like that."

Vren almost enthusiastically, asked, "What, turning on our 'clients' to help a friend in trouble, fighting at least three armies?"

"Hell no, you crazy krogan." Kix replied, "I mean having our enemies just lining up for the slaughter of the month."

Shepard and the Cerberus woman then entered the doorway but before Garrus could say anything to his formerly deceased friend, Prudii gave a warning to the woman, "Try to take the quarrel, I place one here and here," Prudii pointed to the woman's head and heart.

Garrus changed the mood, "Your kicking ass, Shepard. You too, Mandalorians. They barely touched me. And we got Jaroth in the process. I've been hunting that little bastard for months."

Shepard asked his turian friend, "Why were you after him?"

Garrus told him, "He's been shipping tainted eezo all over Citadel space. Half the goods I seized back at C-Sec came from his team on Omega. My team, the Mandalorians and I took out a big shipment a while back and killed his top lieutenant in the process."

Aran added, "He was Jaroth's brother, what'd you expect. I'm surprised he didn't team up with them sooner."

Shepard noted, "We've still got Blood Pack and Blue Suns left. Think we can make a break for it?"

"Maybe." Garrus turned to the bridge, "Let's see what they're up to."

Prudii and Kix were still looking at the bridge. "Other side heavily reinforced."

"Nothin' coming over the bridge yet, Aran. Think their up to something…" Before Kix or Aran could speculate a large explosion went off and an alarm started to sound.

Vren knew the blast type and it was Blood Pack made but he still criticized Kix, "Thanks for jinxing us like that."

Garrus activated his omni-tool to check, "Damn it. They've breached the lower level. Well, they had to use their brains eventually. You guys better get down there. I'll keep the bridge clear."

Shepard then suggested, "Let's split up four and four – keep one of my team here."

Garrus asked, "You sure? Who knows what you'll find down there."

Aran agreed with Shepard, "Good idea. It's going to get crowded down there if we have too many people. Kix, Prudii stay here, as Rang would say, 'this is your specialty'." The two of them just nod as they took their positions from before.

Shepard turned to Massani, "Zaeed, stay with Garrus. Keep him alive."

Zaeed simply answered, "Roger that." reloading his sniper rifle.

Garrus could only say, "Thanks, Aran, Shepard. You guys better get going."

Shepard replied, "We're on our way."

Garrus then told them where, "Go down a level – the basement door is on the west side of the main room, behind the stairs. I'll radio directions if you need help…but you've got to get down there quick. Good luck."

With the Cerberus woman leaving and the area relatively quiet, Prudii took the opportunity to remove the quarrel from Jaroth's head. As he examined the dead salarian, Prudii found the quarrel had almost went through the skull and made a puncture on the ground. From the backside of the head, Prudii ripped the small metal quarrel out of Jaroth and swiftly returned to his perch with the others.

* * *

Rasen had switched with Tare and the quarian had killed a vorcha. Nyona blasted the krogan with a Warp that stopped him for a moment, followed by an Incinerate sent by Rang. Nyona then fired a sniper round through the krogan's helmet and through his brain. The last of the vorcha were hiding behind a crate. Nyona swapped her sniper rifle for her shotgun as she jumped off the balcony using her Biotics to slow her descent. Rang ran down the stairs reloading the concussion rifle.

"Head's up." Rang then fired the LJ at the box blasting all three vorcha out of cover. Nyona then used a Biotic Charge to get behind the vorcha and she gunned them down, but not before the last one cut one of her air tubes with a few lucky shots.

Nyona could hear the hissing of the air as she murmured to herself, "Shit."

Rang could see the broken hose. "Just hold your breath. I'll seal that up and…"

"Too late." Nyona grabbed her assault rifle, "Now we have to find the doctor soon." She radioed the others, "Quarians, let's go. Bring the humans. We're in vorcha territory now, so stay alert."

As they moved up Rasen stopped. Tare then asked her, "What are you doing? Nyona wants us to move."

"She also wants us to be careful. That apartment door is unlocked." Rasen then grabbed her shotgun, "I'm going to check it out."

Tare wasn't going to let Rasen go alone but he had to protect the humans. Tare decided and turned to the humans, "Slight detour, we're going to check out the apartment and you're both coming with me."

The man started to argue with Tare, "You're supposed to take us to the clinic. Not drag us into danger!"

Tare could only tell the human, "And I'm not going to let her go alone. She'll take point so if we do end up fighting someone the two of you have time to find somewhere to hide."

Nyona was getting impatient as they should have been there by then. "Rasen, Tare, where are you? We don't have all day."

Rasen told her, "Just a minute. I want to make sure nothing dangerous is in this apartment. Waiting a few minutes isn't going to kill you."

Nyona thought to herself, _if only she knew._ Nyona was a proud person, like the commandos, she didn't want anyone to view her as a handicap or a burden.

Rasen entered the first door and started to sweep the area. Clear, she signaled Tare to move up. Proceeding through the next door someone shouted, "Hey, hey, hey! Back off…we got here first." As Rasen rounded the corner she saw who it was; a human with a five o'clock shadow and there was a second one looting a dead turian. "Hey, quarian, what did I say? We found this stuff. It's ours!"

The second man then told his partner, "Ah, forget it. Nothing but junk in here. This place is worse than the last one."

Rasen could guess what the two humans were up to but she didn't want to jump the gun. "What are you doing in this apartment? Did you kill that turian?"

The first human turned, "What, the guy on the floor? Nah, the plague took care of him. We're just here to take a full accounting of all his worldly possessions."

Rasen was disgusted, "That's pretty low, stealing from the dead."

The human shrugged, "What's the big deal? It's not like they're going to miss anything. We're just showing a little entrepreneurial spirit. The plague doesn't affect humans, so we might as well cash in. Besides, you quarians are bigger looters then us."

Rasen was getting angry at them and Tare had just arrived. "Listen humans, we don't steal or loot anything. Quarians who are true to the Fleet never steal from anyone! All of our ships were purchased or salvage no one wanted!"

Tare heard Rasen's yelling and told the two humans to wait at the door. "We cannot speak for everyone but, we quarians only salvage what most would just throw away."

The other human tried to justify their actions, "Hey, if we don't take this stuff, the vorcha or Blue Suns will. Better us than them, right?"

Rasen responded to the humans, "No more looting."

The bearded man was smug, "Or what? You gonna to shoot us?"

Before Rasen could think about pulling out her shotgun, Tare intervened, "This plague won't last forever. When the Blue Suns come back, they won't like you looting in their territory."

The human the guessed, "Yeah, well…maybe they won't find out. It's not like there's any witnesses alive to tell them."

Tare continued, "Are some dead turian's trinkets and a handful of credits worth that risk?"

The human scratched the back of his head, "We just wanted to make a bit of quick cash. But when you put it like that, it doesn't sound like such a good idea. Hardly found anything valuable, anyway. Yeah you're probably right – it's not worth it."

While Rasen tried to bring herself emotionally level, Tare asked the humans, "Do you know a salarian named Mordin Solus?"

The man said, "Yeah, I know him. Got a clinic right around the corner. Take plenty of ammo if you go that way – it's crawling with Blue Suns and vorcha."

Tare asked, "Could you tell me everything you know about Mordin Solus?"

The human next to the dead turian spoke up, "That guy is crazy. He'll patch up a gunshot wound for free, then kick your ass and throw you out when you try to grab a few painkillers."

The bearded man turned to his partner, "Be honest, man. You kind of had that coming."

The other human continued, "No way he's just a doctor. No doctor puts down a Blue Suns squad like that."

The bearded human added, "All I know is, if you go to his clinic, don't cause any trouble."

Rasen, now cold down, asked, "The Blue Suns control this district, right?"

The first human answered, "They used to, before the plague wiped half of them out. Seems like it won't be long until the vorcha finish them off. I'm kinda sorry to see them go. The Blue Suns ran a tight ship. Kept the district in line, for the most part."

Tare then asked, "What do you know about the vorcha?"

The bearded man answered again, "The Blue Suns used to keep them down. But with all the Suns getting sick, the vorcha are making a push to take over the district. Don't know who's going to come out on top. We just want to stay the hell out of the way."

Rasen then started walking away, "We need to get going."

The bearded man said, "Yeah, sure. We'll just stay here for a while. Get some rest. Don't worry – you made your point. We ain't gonna steal nothing."

Rasen, Tare and the humans finally regrouped with the others. They saw the open air hose, "Nyona, are you going to be alright?"

Nyona acted as though it wasn't there, "Let's move. We listened in to your conversation with the humans."

They walked through a door and down a stairway. At the stair way they saw the sign pointing to the right. After turning the corner, there was another sign pointing to the right again. Inside they were greeted by a human with an average M-8 Avenger assault rifle with a pair of LOKI mechs behind him. The human then told them as the group passed, "No funny business once you're in the clinic – unless you want to deal with those mechs." A failed threat that Rang couldn't help but laugh in his mind.

Inside the clinic itself they saw many humans helping patients or working the front desk. There were plenty of turians and batarians along with a few salarians who were waiting for Mordin or waiting out the quarantine. Rang turned to their tagalongs, "Here we are, safe and sound. No thanks necessary. And we ain't charging yea'. Now if you'd excuse us we have to find a doctor."

* * *

**A/N: **The focus is more on Nyona's group because they have more ground to cover but the Archangel fight will finish before the others can get to the fans, and that will be fact. I don't know when I'll get the swing back but I'll try to continue writing.


	19. Cleaning the Basement & Swatting a Fly

**A/N: **Sorry editing session gone awry. Don't remember what was said up here.

* * *

The group walked down a hallway guarded by a pair of mechs. To the right of the mechs, they found a salarian with one of his head horns missing and a human assistant attending to a turian plague victim. They could hear the doctor was rambling on about possible causes and cures. Rang then interrupted the doctor's rambling, "Professor Mordin Solus, I presume?"

Before Rang could say anything else, the salarian noticed Nyona trying to keep a cough in. The salarian activated his omni-tool. Nyona started to glow orange as the doctor provided her with the cure, "Asari. Not many here. Very susceptible. Would have been dead in days. This will take care of it." He then saw Rasen and Tare, "Quarian enviro-suits will prevent plague from affecting them. Would probably die instantaneously otherwise. Now, to greetings, human. Curious. Don't recognize from area. Too well-armed to be refugees. No mercenary uniform. Quarantine still in effect." Mordin continued to a nearby terminal, "Here for something else. Vorcha? Crew to clean them out? Unlikely. Vorcha a symptom, not a cause." Mordin returned to Rang and the dead turian, "The plague? Investigating possible uses as bio-weapon? No. No, no. Too many guns, not enough data equipment. Yes! Yes!" The salarian then read some reading on his omni-tool, "Hired guns, maybe? Looking for someone? Yes! Yes! But who? Someone important. Valuable. Someone with secrets. Someone like me." With that realization, Mordin returned to the table with the turian, "Me. Looking for me. Why? Who are you and what do you want?"

Nyona couldn't care less but she still asked coldly, "Do you ever pause for breath?"

Mordin then tried. "Sorry. I'll…try…to…slow…down. No. Can't do it. No time. Who are you?"

Rang wanted to correct the doctor in a minor point, "I'm sure your omni-tool has determined, I'm not fully human."

Mordin paused for a moment. He then looked back at his omni-tool, "Yes! Remember now. Heard about you. Yes, not entirely human. Four human looking beings. Speculated to be from entirely different galaxy all together. Mandalorians they called themselves. Soon created group with same name but with many different species. Often work for Aria. Freelance group who work for almost anyone. Have turned on certain contractors after job completed or before accepting contract. Noble but redundant none the less."

Rasen confirmed, "Indeed we are, Doctor Solus."

Nyona interrupted before the salarian could say a word, "Listen we're here so that another group doesn't get to you first. I guess you can say we need you for a mission."

Mordin's hyper-talk just blathered away, "Mission? What mission? No, no. Too busy. Clinic understaffed. Plague spreading too fast. Who sent you?"

Rang was having his fun for the day, "Let's just say it's in the interest of a special group, usually involved in various tactics and reconnaissance based mission."

The doctor paused for a moment to read in-between the lines, "Spectres? Some members of salarian STG, even some Spectres, speculate that original Mandalorians are actually undeclared Spectres. No proof of accusations but some evidence does point to it. Unexplainable reports, various inconsistencies."

Rang lied, "Do you really think the Council would trust the likes of us after making such alliances or even after all the things we've done. I mean, the turian Councilor doesn't like us because we look so human."

Mordin just went on, "True. But human councilor could cause shift in political tide."

Nyona interrupted them again as she tried to keep within the mission, "The Collectors are kidnapping entire human populations. We're going to find out why and stop them, I think."

Mordin contemplated, "Collectors? Interesting. Plague hitting these slums is engineered. Collectors one of few groups with technology to design it. Our goals may be similar." Mordin moved back to the terminal, "But must stop plague first. Already have a cure. Need to distribute it at environmental control center. Vorcha guarding it. Need to kill them."

Rang boldly and proudly said, "Don't worry about it. We'll get in and deal with the vorcha." As if it was a cue, the fans shut down and the lights dimmed to a red glow. "Wow. Really? Even here, the Force doesn't like me."

Rasen and Tare knew all too well that sound, "Keelah!"

Rasen didn't need an omni-tool to know, "The environmental systems have been shut down. Given the size of the district, the fires and the number of survivors," Rasen stopped to crunch the numbers in her mind, "if we're lucky, we have about an hour tops, maybe half, before everyone suffocates."

Mordin handed Rang a vial, "Here, take plague cure. Also, bonus in good faith." Mordin then gave them an M-6 Carnifex heavy pistol, "Weapon from dead Blue Suns mercs. May come in handy against vorcha." Mordin stopped them before they could try to leave, "One more thing. Daniel. One of my assistants. Went into vorcha territory. Looking for victims. Hasn't come back."

Rang answered the worried doctor, "I swear, from a field medic to a doctor, If we see him, we'll do what we can to help."

Mordin was visibly relieved, "Thank you. Told him not to go. But he's smart. Bright future. I hope."

Rang added, "One more thing. We found a batarian plague victim near the entrance to the neighborhood. I stabilized him but we're going the opposite way. As a field medic to a doctor, can you send someone to help him?"

Mordin thought about it, "Risky. Blue Suns, vorcha still battling. District not secure. See what I can do."

Nyona was still in charge of the mission, "Let's move out."

* * *

In Kima District, Garrus and his group were holding off vorcha crossing the bridge. Through the doorway Aran and Vren stopped as vorcha started to come out of the three doorways. Aran grabbed a frag grenade in hand, "I think it's time for a little vorcha bowling." Aran tossed the grenade into the midst of the group. Aran timed it to explode on contact. The whole group was turned to ashes from the explosion.

The group moved on as Aran pressed the button to lock the door. More varren, vorcha and krogan started to come through. Shepard and Miranda were taking down any vorcha that came from the left. Vren was taking down any from Aran's right. The five seconds felt like an hour, with the number of vorcha and krogan that attacked them. The door finally closed on a vorcha before it could pass.

Vren said, "Right flank looked pretty wide open. My kind of environment."

Aran bluntly said, "And if Shepard and the Cerberus take left, we have a plan."

The woman yelled, "I have a name, Mandalorian!"

Aran rebutted, "And you never gave it. Let's move, Vren."

Aran switched his DC-17 for his ACP repeater pair. Vren still had his M-96 Matlock popping vorcha heads. Entering, Aran saw a vorcha taking cover behind an IED, improvised explosive device. Aran fired a series of shots at the explosives, incinerating the stupid vorcha. Vren had knocked the heads off a pair of vorcha with four shots and crushed a varren under toe.

Aran kept pushing the assault as more varren, vorcha and krogan started to hop over another makeshift barrier.

Vren tackled three vorcha to a wall and then promptly blasted each with a shotgun round to the face. Vren saw the charging varren and fired a Carnage at it.

Aran was taking his time making sure each vorcha was permanently down. He contacted Shepard, "How are you doing are your end, Commander?"

Shepard was pinned by a vorcha with a flamethrower, with the door only three hurdles away. "We're almost done on are end, you?" Miranda caused an overload in the flamethrower bursting the vorcha into flames catching another one on fire.

Vren punched the button as the two of them continued to press the attack against the incoming Blood Pack. "We're at the shutter's controls. You better hurry up." The two Mandalorians were stopping this invading group, keeping them back to the pair of X3M until the shutters finally closed. "We're done here."

Shepard had just finished the last vorcha in the way as more krogan and vorcha started to jump over a barrier. "Give us a few more seconds." Miranda shot the canisters on the back of a Pyro and warping the armor of a krogan. They had kept the Blood Pack at bay long enough for the shutter to close.

* * *

Garrus radioed the away teams, "Get back here, guys. They're coming in through the doors."

The group looked on as a door on the other side was being cut open. The door opened with Garm at point yelling at his men, "Raaah! Rip them to shreds!" They started to move out when suddenly a vorcha to Garm's right fell to the ground. Garm looked toward the direction the hole in its head came from only to see Garrus reloading his sniper rifle. "Watch my back. I'll deal with Archangel!"

Another vorcha was shout and pointing towards something when it was sent flying back. Araniik with his DC-17m shot the vorcha accompanied by Vren, Shepard and Miranda. Prudii was more than ready as he sniped the last two vorcha through their heads. Zaeed shot down the varren. Garrus and the other snipers moved to better locations as the krogans moved out of their scopes.

Vren did the crazies thing and rammed into the Blood Pack member, as he pushed him towards the window. The krogan was taken by surprise from the initial tackle but soon found his footing and started to fight back. With that Garm started to run up the stairs. Miranda and Shepard were tearing away at Garm's Biotic barrier when Vren shouted to them, "Garm's mine to kill, not you mammals!" Vren kicked the Blood Pack in the quad then grabbed him by his hump and tossed the krogan out the window to a very long drop.

Aran could only guess as to why but he wasn't going to get in the way of an enraged krogan. "I'd do what he said, Shepard." Shepard agreed as they finished removing his barrier. Prudii signaled the others to just stay down as well.

Garm had reached Garrus' perch shouting, "Come out, Archangel!" He started to shot the furniture and anything else he could, "What's the matter, afraid to face me like last time?"

Vren was careful as he reached the room Garm was shooting up. He waited for Garm to look the other way before he rushed in. Vren had knocked Garm's shotgun out of his hands and left most of his weapons outside the room, save for his knife.

Garrus took the opportunity to line up the shot but Prudii got in the way. Prudii only muttered to Garrus, "Warrior's honor." And just stood there watching.

Garm tried to use his Biotics against Vren but he was too close for him to use his more devastating attacks. Garm tried to blast him away but Vren was able to dodge, thanks in large part to his sparing with Bev and Prudii. He was also using some pointers that Bev and Rang had also strategized with him about hand-to-hand combat against krogans. Due to krogan regenerative properties, chipping away would only tire the user out first. But from Rang's medical analysis he found an 'Achilles heel' in krogan scales. Unarmored, a blade could penetrate open joint areas such as around the knees or the armpits. But Garm was mostly covered in armor, the only area left were his eyes and neck. Vren slashed at Garm's face only for Garm to barely avoid the edge.

Vren took advantage the off balanced krogan by kicking him to the floor. On the ground, Vren launched a tech mine, causing Garm's armor to lock on him preventing the krogan from defending himself or get back up. Vren hurried to grab the closest shotgun before Garm's armor unlocked. Vren had the claymore over the battlemaster's head, "This for every one of my clan you killed." Vren pulled the trigger killing Garm.

Kix moved to Vren, "You better now?" Vren kept Garm's shotgun. "I think Aran wouldn't mind if you kept the armor if you want…"

Aran walked in, "But he's going to lug it back to the ship if he wants it."

Shepard and Miranda also walked in. Garrus acknowledged all of their efforts, "Thanks, guys. They hardly got through to me. And we took out Garm and his Blood Pack. This day just gets better and better."

Shepard asked Garrus as Vren moved the dead krogan, "You've fought with him before?"

Garrus nodded, "Yeah, we tangled once. Caught him alone. None of his gang to help him. I still couldn't take him out. I've never seen a krogan regen that fast. He's a freak of nature. He just kept at it until his vorcha showed up. It was close, but I had to let him go. Not this time."

Vren was stripping pieces of Garm's armor, "Garm was a known figure that wiped out my clan. I have a few others on my list, but they'll join the dust soon."

Shepard noted the enemy forces, "Only the Blue Suns are left. I say we take our chances and fight our way out."

Aran didn't see anything he didn't like, "I like that plan. Mandalorians prepare for hard contact."

Garrus also agreed, "I think you're right. Tarak's got the toughest group, but nothing we haven't faced before. Besides, he won't be expecting us to meet him head-on—" An A-61 Mantis Gunship had appeared, breaking glass. The glass breaking alerted everyone, prompting them to take cover.

Miranda shouted, "Head's up!"

When Garrus saw the gunship, he thought out loud, "Damn it! I thought I took that thing out already!"

Shepard answered him, "They fixed it, but not completely. I made sure of that."

Garrus alerted the others, "They're offloading troops! Watch your backs!"

Vren could only smile under his helmet, "This is my kind of fight!"

Jentha was the first to drop in after the gunship broke the glass. She was followed by a pair of fully armored Blue Suns. Zaeed brought down one of the Blues with a well-placed sniper shot. Shepard had gunned down the turian Blue Sun that had just jumped off. Garrus took down the last grunt as a Legionnaire had arrived and the gunship left. While Aran and Miranda removed the shields off Jentha and the batarian, Prudii put the kill shot on the Legionnaire. Kix destroyed Jentha's armor allowing for Vren to get a few well timed shots killing her.

Garrus could hear the gunship and knew what Tarak was doing, "They're rappelling down the side wall. Ground floor!"

Prudii had already positioned himself with them in his view. Prudii sniped the first three Blue Suns but he had to reload after. During that time the Blues took the opportunity to drop more troops. A heavy was launching volleys of missiles to keep him down. That left the heavy open to Shepard. The Blues were trying to get up the stairs but Vren was ready for them with his bigger shotgun, blasting one of the grunts. Miranda Warped the Blue Sun Vren let by, and finished him off with a series of shots. Zaeed was waiting for the bigger fishes, as he set his assault rifle with disruptor rounds and ripped through the Legionnaire's shields and gunned him down. Last was a lone Centurion as he made a desperate run for the stairs. Aran used his DC-17m to destroy his shields and tossed a flash-bang to stall him long enough for Garrus to snipe him down.

Garrus was preparing for more Blue Suns to drop from the first window when the A-61 gunship appeared from the bridge side and Tarak shouting, "Archangel!" Garrus was taken by surprise but he tried to bring the gunship down like last time. Tarak wasn't going to let that happen as he started to tear up the place with the M350 machine guns. Garrus took a few hits and drag himself to cover. Tarak was lecturing him, "You think you can screw with the Blue Suns!" Garrus heard the pause in his attack and knew what was coming. In a desperate attempt to move, Garrus jump out of cover but Tarak had already fired a missile yelling, "This ends now!"

Shepard ran back in the room behind the couch Garrus was able to get behind after the explosions. Shepard tried to get a response from the turian, "Garrus!" To no avail, part of his body was smoking and the gunship was still attacking.

Aran could see the downed turian as he called for backup, "Tervho! We need a medical team at my location ASAP! Turian physiology!"

Bev was already suited up, "Yes, sir! ETA: three minutes."

Aran didn't like the look about Garrus, "Make it half. Garrus doesn't look good." Bev was gathering the Tervho's best medics left on the ship and prepared the shuttle for immediate dust-off.

With Tarak focused on Archangel, Shepard, Zaeed, and the Mandalorians moved to positions to permanently take down the gunship. Vren started firing at the right thruster, Kix and Prudii were shooting the left one, and Araniik shot at the cockpit. Miranda was also giving support fire on the gunship and Warping through the armor. Now Tarak turned his attention to Aran yelling, "If you Mandalorians want to interfere, then die with him!" He started to fire his missiles that kept everyone down.

The gunship fell back out of their sight. Prudii could hear it as he silently signaled the others where. Just as Tarak reappeared everyone was already behind cover. Luckily, Garrus was still out of his range of attack. This time Tarak was spreading his attack trying to hit any of them. Prudii turned invisible and crawled below the line of fire. Before the tech wore out, he shot at the cockpit. The shot broke through the cockpit's glass refracting the shot, missing Tarak's head by about three centimeters. The gunship pulled back only to drop more troops.

Zaeed, Kix and Prudii weren't going to wait as they each placed a hole into a Blue Sun helmet.

Araniik yelled, "Bridge side!" With that, everyone unloaded on the gunship before it could start firing. The gunship finally succumbed to the damage, as Tarak lost control. The gunship crashed onto the bridge in a pillar of flames. Aran turned to Prudii, "Make sure their all dead." With a nod, the black armored Mandalorian disappeared and traveled downstairs to check.

Shepard was checking on his turian friend. Suddenly Garrus awoke, gasping for air. Shepard shouted "Garrus!" Shepard rolled him over to check the damage, "We're getting you out of here, Garrus. Just hold on. Radio Joker. Make sure they're ready for us."

As Miranda provided medical aid, Zaeed made his own grim assessment, "He's not gonna make it."

Shepard turned to the Mandalorian leader, "Araniik, aren't one of you Mandalorians proficient with field aid?"

Aran could only shake his head, "We know how to patch ourselves. Rang's the only one qualified to do that. Unfortunately, he's occupied with a mission currently."

Soon a shuttle could be heard coming near. Zaeed grabbed his assault rifle and was ready. "Damn it. Looks like Tarak called in reinforcements before he died."

Oddly enough, the Mandalorians were not doing anything. Vren just told the mercenary, "It wasn't Tarak that called the reinforcements."

A grey Kodiak Drop Shuttle, with a large white skull with long teeth and curved horns on the side of the skull was on the shuttle door. The Mythosaurs skull, just like the one Araniik had on his armor. The shuttle opened its door at the upper level were Aran was. A team of five armored beings, two turians, two humanoids, and a salarian came out with medical supplies, all of their helmets had T-shaped visors. They were all white and red with a Medical Cross on their right shoulder. The first one, a humanoid, stood in front of Aran saluting, "Medical team reporting, Sir. What's the situation?"

Aran turned to where Garrus was, "We got a turian taken down by a Mantis Dropship. Machine gun, and burns from missile explosion. Get to it Mandalorians."

"Yes sir." The medic signaled the others and they all ran over to Garrus.

While they tended to the turian, Aran wanted to talk with Shepard, privately. Aran quietly signaled this to Shepard as he moved towards the door. Next to the stairs, Aran confronted him, "All right, Shepard. I know we remet on the wrong foot back on Freedom's Progress, so I want some straight answers, now."

* * *

**A/N: **Same with down here.

**Mando'a Translation: **Sorry nothing here.


	20. Clearing the air

**A/N: **Sorry for the wait, but now let's find out how Aran reacts to Shepard's response.

* * *

Shepard had only worked with Aran and his original team during the Battle of the Citadel and after when they were learning about this galaxy. After his 'death' two years ago, much had changed. "I'm sure you mean about Cerberus, right?"

Aran nodded as he noted, "After you died, I read your unofficial biography and all of the available mission reports. Hell of a life on this Earth planet. Then you lost fifty men and women from thresher maws, of which you yourself later discover, Cerberus were the ones behind that attack. Now, I don't know about you, but if someone killed even one of my brothers, or my crew, I'd hunt them down like the animal they are and kill them, slowly and painfully."

Shepard knew that feeling, as he also had thoughts about letting Corporal Toombs, or himself, kill the doctor known only as Wayne. Shepard had to ask, "So, what was it exactly that Cerberus did to you guys to get on your bad side?"

Aran looked to see some of the medics tend to Garrus. "My brothers and I were helping the quarians with a few things on their fleet. A bunch of events were happening onboard the Nemma. Soon, Cerberus attacked using a captured scouting vessel. They killed the entire crew to get that ship. After they started to board, we helped fight back. Long story short, they learned about us somehow and tried to hunt us, we hunted them back, and we killed them all. We sent a message to the Illusive Man, if they tried to chase us again, we'd hunt down ever last Cerberus agent and cell, including him, kill them and destroy any projects we'd come across. Now I don't know why you'd trust them all of a sudden, but as a fellow soldier, I'm willing to hear you out. If I don't like it, the next time we meet, you might be on the other end of my barrel."

Shepard would not expect anything less from him. "Remember the Reaper, Sovereign." Aran simply nodded, flashing back to when he first saw the monstrous black squid-shaped ship attached to the Citadel Tower. "The Illusive Man believes the Collectors are working for the Reapers. After seeing what they did on Freedom's Progress, I think I believe too. I still don't trust Cerberus, but unfortunately they're the ones who brought me back to life, and they're the only ones doing something about these attacks on human colonies."

Aran said, "If they brought me back from the dead, I'd have sent them in my place." Aran laughed to show he was partly kidding. Aran then turned to Shepard and became serious, "It's just political bull to blame the abductions on slavers and pirates. But actually Shepard, the Council has been doing something about it. Nothing the public's aware of, of course. Councilor Anderson has asked us to see if we can dig up any information from the underground. They were all dead ends. We already knew that before we started. Slavers and pirates aren't bold, brave or smart enough to pull operations this big without someone finding out or leaking the information somewhere, and batarian extremists would only be wasting resources and men if they didn't announce they were the one behind the attacks. No bodies or signs of struggle just made it harder to prove who actually did do it. We got luck when Veetor wasn't taken on Freedom's Progress. Still, the Council dismisses the Collectors as myth. This information still doesn't prove that the Reapers are involved, or that they actually exist. I'm not saying what I think. If I give them a report with what I have, that's what most of the Councilors will tell me."

Shepard then suggested to the commando, "Why not work with me? Together, we can try to prove the Reapers really exist and we'll also be stopping these attacks on human colonies."

Aran had placed his hand against his helmet thinking about the offer before he responded. "I'd like to offer my assistance to you, Commander. But me and my crew are on bad terms with Cerberus. If you give me your email, I'll gladly pass along any information that might be useful. But don't expect us to work with Cerberus any time soon. We'll take Garrus to our ship until our medics declare him ready for action. We'll talk about when we'll meet in Afterlife to hand Garrus to you." Aran had complete faith and confidence that the medical team will be able to save the turian.

Shepard was relieved to hear that his friend will make it through. "Thank you, Aran. Now all I have to do is find the professor and…"

Aran cut him off, "Actually, we learned from Aria that you were looking for Garrus and Dr. Solus. We already have a team trying to get to the doctor as we speak. Because of the Cerberus elements, I was planning on taking these two before you did and try to see how the Collectors, you and Cerberus fit together." Aran was leaning over the side of the ledge now, "With what you've told me, that plan's blown out of the water." Aran turned back to look at the Commander, "My crew won't like the news but, I figure you're going to need a good friend in that crowd, as well as those who probably disapprove of Cerberus. Like I said back on the colony, we have our own angles we can work off of." Aran threw out his left hand, "Good luck with that mission and all of those Cerberus agents, Commander."

Shepard grasped the hand powerfully as they shook, "Let's hope we can continue to be allies in the future."

The two of them returned to see an argument ensuing between Miranda and one of the turian medics. "…I told you, where here to recruit him. He's coming with us."

The turian Miranda was arguing with was a female. Her hips were very supportive, and compared to male turians her build was slightly smaller. She was poking her finger against Miranda's collar bone, "Now you listen to me, Cerberus. We are taking him to our ship to finish with proper medical procedures. Procedures you would have no knowledge about or would be ready for."

Miranda disputed with the turian, "We know we were going to recruit a few aliens. That is why we also have some supplies for every race."

The turian medic laughed, "Key word: some. We have more than enough equipment and supplies to deal with all known curable diseases for multiple species. Besides, if it wasn't for your precious Cerberus, you mammals might have had a seat on the Council years ago. Cerberus is the only really reason the Turian Hierarchy, and Councilor Velarn, are so opposed to you humans." The turian may have been just a medic but her flotilla was one of the few to survive an early encountered with the shadow organization.

Shepard had stepped in to stop the argument, "Enough. Garrus is going to go with the Mandalorians, for now. Isn't that right, Aran?"

The Mandalorian leader nodded, "This time. From how hard Cerberus here fought, it sounds like you're planning on doing something stupid, almost suicidal. Just the kind of missions me and my boys were made and trained for." Aran then activated his omni-tool and pulled out an OSD drive from his pack. He tossed the device to Shepard, "Data on the location of where we'll be meeting. I'll contact you the when. Mandalorians, let get back home."

On cue, the shuttle was at the window with the hatch opened. Prudii was waiting to assist, if needed. The medics carefully carried Garrus on with a stretcher, with the others entering soon after. Vren was last to board, as he had ripped off a shoulder piece and part of the chest piece from Garm's armor. With everyone inside, the hatch closed and the shuttle took off.

* * *

Leaving the clinic through a back door, Nyona had taken point. They could hear the screams from vorcha fighting about something. A pyro and a vorcha seemed to be talking about something, with another pair waiting beyond them. Nyona linked her HUD with her team as she started to target vorcha. Nyona had targeted one of the farther vorcha for Rang to hit with his Incinerate tech. Rasen was to overload the pyro's flamethrower and Tare would finish off the vorcha next to it, should it survive the explosion. Nyona herself was going to crush the other far distant vorcha with her Biotic. Nyona was also providing locations for everyone to use when the other Blood Pack started the attack.

Rasen quickly moved to the other side of the doorway waiting for Nyona's signal. Nyona moved forward, Rasen was ready to throw her Overload to the pyro trooper. Soon after, Rang launched his tech attacks from around the corner. Then Nyona crushed her vorcha's head with a powerful Warp. After seeing the vorcha's head caved in, the other vorcha were too late to react to the incoming attacks. First the Incinerate plasma ball hit the far off vorcha. It screamed as it tried to pat itself out but the flames soon engulfed it. Rasen immediately tossed her tech, as it instantaneously, caused a malfunction in the vorcha's gas tanks. The explosion caught the nearby vorcha causing it to fall to the ground. Tare had moved up to make sure it stayed down with a few rounds to the head.

Tare was now behind an over turned table with Rang right next to him. Rasen had moved to the further doorway to ensure none of the Blood Pack could get around to them, if they got clever enough. Nyona continued her assault from the doorway.

More vorcha started to arrive as they tried to take cover behind the same positions the two vorcha Rang and Nyona dealt with. Rang gunned down one of them before it could get to cover. Nyona forced the other out of cover with her Biotic Pull, which gave Tare and Rang the opportunity to take it down.

As soon as the vorcha fell, a nearby door opened. Rasen saw a krogan along with another vorcha charging through. Rasen gave the group a heads up, "Looks like we stirred the hive, as the humans say. A krogan and another vorcha have decided to join us." With that warning, they waited behind cover. The vorcha was the first to arrive, opening fire randomly. The krogan had started to also firing into the room.

The wide spray from the shotgun and assault rifle was keeping the others pinned but Rasen was still unknown. Rasen switched her M-23 Katana shotgun for one of the latest M-5 Phalanx heavy pistol the group had received as payment for a job from the Alliance, made possible courteously due to Councilor Anderson and Admiral Hackett. With the blue laser sight, Rasen targeted the vorcha's head. She brought it down with a single shot though the eye. The krogan turned to see the vorcha fall, giving the others the opportunity to bring it down. Rang burned though the krogan's armor with an Incinerate, while Nyona and Tare blasted the Blood Pack with assault rifle rounds.

Another krogan and three more vorcha had accompanied it in their attack on the Mandalorians. One of the vorcha thought it was clever as it tried to get around the group, only to get a face full of pellets from Rasen. Rang deployed a holographic orange and red combat drone ball. The little ball acted like an annoying gnat, fluttering around zapping vorcha out of cover and giving the krogan a new target to try and shot. Tare, Nyona and Rang took full advantage of their occupied opponents, gunning down the two vorcha first. When the krogan destroyed the drone, the drone exploded knocking the krogan to the ground. Nyona grabbed the Blood Pack in a Biotic Lift allowing the team to kill it in midair.

Nyona spoke to the team though their helmet channels, "Rang, is the area clear?"

The thermal scanner on his shoulder activated a green light. After the light turned off, Rang reported, "We have a small group waiting for us at the top of the stairs…a few vorcha and a krogan, I think. And judging from the map I received, in our way of course."

Nyona signaled the team to move forward but to stop before they were in sight of the stairway. Nyona then ordered, "Rang, send your drone to scout ahead."

The little orange ball flew off, climbing the stairs. The moment the drone reached the top of the stairs, it was attacked by a pyro vorcha. With the vorcha revealing itself, Nyona used the distraction to snipe the vorcha's gas tank. The krogan moved passed the pyro before it exploded, firing his shotgun at anyone that would show. Nyona crushed much of the krogan's armor with a powerful Warp. Rang took it down with a series of shots to the large head. The two vorcha just took cover on the top of the stairs behind a pair of boxes. Rang called for assistance, "Hey Rasen, send your combat drone up. I want to try something."

Rasen deployed her blue and green combat drone. "You'd better not do something stupid, Rang."

Rang shrugged, "It's only stupid from a practical point of view." The clone took a lesson he had learned from his Jedi General, twisting it to a form best befitting the jokester. Rang had returned the DC-17 to his leg, switching it for his DC-15 pistol. Rang's omni-tool activated, deploying his explosive combat drone. Rang used the orange hologram on his left arm to keep hold of his drone. Rasen's drone did its job, keeping the vorcha occupied. When Rasen's drone was destroyed, Rang was almost at the top. Rang tossed his drone to the vorcha to his right while he ran to the other vorcha. The explosion from the drone knocked the vorcha to the ground. Rang fired his pistol twelve times at the downed vorcha while he jabbed the other vorcha with his hidden vibroblade though the jugular. Rang smacked the rifle out of the dying vorcha's hand as it struggled to fight back. When the vorcha stopped struggling, Rang pulled back his arm.

Tare had to ask Rang, after seeing the bold and somewhat idiotic stunt, "Was that really necessary?"

Rang kicked both vorcha responding, "I thought it was. The other plan would have taken another minute, and from Ras' estimate, we don't have the luxury of time. Also, these two now brings my kills for the day up to sixteen."

As they continued on, they eventually found a hallway with two closed doors. One near them to the left and the other further down on their right. As they passed the first door, the thermal scanner picked up something, as well as their armor's audio receptors detected a conversation. Rang was at the ready with DC-17m in hand, Nyona had a Vindicator Battle Rifle, Tare also had a Vindicator, and Rasen had the Phalanx pistol in hand. Rang opened the door and everyone stayed out of sight. They could see a human in a scientist's clothing being threatened by a group of batarians.

The human was trying to reason with them, "Please… I'm telling you the truth. I work for Mordin at the clinic. I came here to help you."

The lead batarian had him by the collar of his shirt, "We know you're spreading the plague virus. We saw the vials in your bag."

The man tried to explain to the sick batarians, "No! Those vials contain the cure. Please… you have to believe me." Nyona turned to look at the others and nodded to Rang. The group moved in one by one.

The batarians didn't believe him, "Maybe we should cut off your fingers. That should loosen your—"

Another batarian behind the lead shouted as he readied his shotgun, "Look out!"

The batarian released the human to pull a pistol at him. He shouted to the 'invaders', "Don't move! One more step, and we kill your friend!"

Nyona didn't care if this one doctor assistant lived or died but Rang wasn't going to let the latter happen. Rang started to do what his group didn't expect, sound reasonable. "Look, I know you're scared of the plague, and the vorcha don't exactly help things either. But this human isn't to blame. If he was spreading the virus, why come into vorcha territory? They're immune to diseases."

The batarian with the shotgun turned to the leader, "He's right. It doesn't make any sense."

The lead batarian asked, "If we release the prisoner, we can go?"

Rang said, "_Haat, ijaa, haa'it_, Mandalorian's honor."

The batarian was hesitant but looking at the group he closed all four eyes and lowered the pistol. "Let him go." The other two batarians also lowered their arms. The leader turned to them, "You got what you wanted, human. Are we free to go?"

Rang lowered his weapon laughing, "If I didn't one of my brothers would probably shot me."

The batarian, still believing Rang and Nyona to be humans, noted "Human nobility. I didn't know such a thing existed." The three batarians promptly left without incident.

The man, assumable Daniel, was rubbing his hand to relieve his nerves as he said, "Thank you. I thought they were going to… to kill me. Did Mordin send you to find me?"

Rang answered, "The Doc could use all the help he could get. He's got too many sick and not enough hands."

Daniel started to gather his things, "Yeah, OK. I'll go right away. Thanks again. I owe you… well… everything."

With Mordin's assistant saved, the group continued on to the environmental controls. Rang stopped everyone, "Hey, hold up. I got three vorcha on the other side of that wall fighting over some type of meat. Now if you're willing, Nyona, I have an idea that will blow the vorcha away without them having time to fight back."

Nyona was always one who liked the efficient way, but with Rang that is not usually the best thing. Regrettably, due to the estimated time they have, she was willing to let him. "Fine, just don't let other vorcha hear it."

"No promises on that last part." Rang opened the door to the next area. He could see the vorcha huddled around something. Rang rushed in, hiding next an oddly placed door. The vorcha heard the clanking of armor against wall but soon paid no mind to it. Rang quickly and quietly switched his DC-17m assault components for the anti-armor attachment. His omni-tool started to construct a blue lit disc shaped tech mine. He counted to himself, _3…2…1…_Rang quickly tossed the mine and dove back to cover. The Overload tech did its job, overheating the vorcha weapons. Rang then lobbed the anti-armor round into the midst of the trio, killing them instantly.

Rasen was the first to join Rang as she said, "Still planning to do more stunts like that, _vod'ika_?"

Rang answered her with a friendly tone, "As long as you guys are here I don't have to worry about getting into too much trouble. Come on, I want to see how many more vorcha we get to kill."

* * *

Back on the Tervho, Aran was waiting near the med bay for a report. The operating light dimmed out as the female turian from before walked out the door. Without her armor one could see the white tattoos covering much of her dark brown scales. Her mandibles were smaller then a male's, relative to body proportion, and her fringes were shaved down to be closer to her head. She saw her captain waiting near the door. "Aran, I see you're as on edge as ever. I assume you want to know how our guest is."

Aran was wearing the black under suit he wore under his armor along with his boots. "Yes, is he going to be alright, Palva?"

She handed him a datapad, "We removed all shrapnel and dead tissue. Personal, I'm amazed he survived at such close quarters to the attack. We grafted a synthetic patch to his face to cover most of the facial injuries and he's eager to leave."

Aran was reading the details as he listened. Aran then asked, "Can't we at least grow him new scales for his face and graft that on or something?"

Palva shock her head, "That would take about a month or so in test tubes, and we're not keeping him that long. If you want to give it to him as a present if we meet him later, then I'll think about grabbing better samples before he leaves. Also, that armor is tougher than it looks. Normally I'd advise finding new gear but I don't think he wants to hear that. I think he wants to keep it as a reminder of his team…"

Aran could understand what that meant to the turian as Palva also kept a broken visor to remember her lost crew. "OK, as soon as Nyona and the others return with Mordin, I'll personally take them to meet with Shepard."

Palva caught Aran before he could walk away, "Are you sure we can trust Cerberus?"

Aran looked her face to face, "I never said I did. But I'm willing to give Shepard the benefit of the doubt, for now. Until he does anything remotely Cerberus like, I'm willing to believe Shepard. I don't think some of the others will understand, but Shepard's going to need all of the friends he can get in the crowd he's traveling with now."

Palva had seen that soldier's trust before, and from the public record she's read about Shepard, she could understand. She breathed in a heavy sigh before she answered, "I'll try to convince some of the crew then. As long as you can convince the others outside the med bay."

Aran nodded to her, "I just hope the rest of the crew is willing to see that I'm doing this for Shepard, not for Cerberus. If he has changed and he really has joined Cerberus, I promise we will hunt Shepard down…" Aran wasn't sure what to say.

Palva had respect for Shepard for saving the Citadel Council but that didn't mean she was going to trust him. "'And bring them to the Citadel Council, even if they fight back.' That should satisfy the crews' minds, for the time being. Though I think the quarians might have a harder time understanding."

Aran tried to use something along the lines of Rang's bad jokes to ease himself, "I think it will be easier to take on the whole Clanker army then to face Rasen about that."

* * *

**A/N: **I want to make it clear, Toombs and Wayne survived that mission. I forgot to say, I'm not going to talk about Shepard's armor because their are too many pieces with custimizable colors that could be used and different armor sets all together, so for thoughs of us who do know, I suggest just substituting whatever armor, color and or pieces you liked to use(otherwise just imagine N7 default TV commercial armor). I hope some of you noticed my little Garrus reference in here(I thought it was funny anyway). During the Mordin recruit mission, I always thought this one door was placed oddly since we could hop over a huddle next to the door without doing anything. Palva(yeah I know, part of Palaven, turian homeworld, but hey there are human women with the name Terra so why not) is like Dr. Chakwas but not as old, I think(Palva is in her mid to late 40s in human years).

**Mando'a Translation:** This is new and I thought it would be best to start translating down here to have the story run a bit smoother, unless they define it or I do in the paragraph(though the pronunciations are down here).

Vod(vohd)- brother, sister, comrade(in this context brother)

ika(EE-kah)- diminutive suffix written as 'ika, also added to a name as a very familiar or childhood form, e.g, Ord'ika - Little Ordo

Haat, ijaa, haa'it(Haht-i-JAH-hah-EET)- Truth, honor, vision - words used to seal a pact


	21. Bugs in the Vents

**A/N: **Please, someone smack me now! I feel like a failure(or a fool) for I have mislead you, but really it was around midnight when I first started writing the story. I failed to notice my utter mistake with Araniik's meaning, I first wrote condor when it should have been cordon(I feel as bad as when I realized I had misspelled Prudii's name for so long). I have correct this error and many other grammatical errors I failed to notice before. I also created a "Mandalorian Translation" section(at the bottom) of all of my previous chapters(most have pronunciations, it's all I've got). I would like to hear some feed back about this(I'd like to know if this really is an improvement over what I had before). Now to finish off the Blood Pack...

* * *

Looking around, the only place left to go was down a flight of stairs and though a doorway. Nyona knew Rang's little display was going to be heard by anyone down there. That prompted her to say, "Rang, you're going first."

Rang was still not taking the situation seriously asked, "Is this about that dinner incident last week, or when you were nailed in the face with that water balloon a month ago? Cause that plate was for Jor, and I was aiming for Vren when he suddenly stopped and you turned around that corner."

Nyona was getting tempted to blast him with her Biotics. "Just get moving before I decide to make you!"

"Sheesh, you don't have to yell." Rang, nonchalantly, walked down the stairs. He became more cautions when he noticed no door. Against the wall, Rang slowly peered into the large room. A vorcha was on an elevated area next to a large fan. Rang immediately pulled back before the vorcha could see him. Rang signaled what he saw and asked Nyona for her sniper rifle to kill it.

Nyona quietly moved up. Rang moved aside to let her snipe. Nyona stayed closed to the wall, keeping the sniper rifle near the ground. She started to look though the scope to find the vorcha Rang signaled. She found it was waiting with a ML-77 Missile Launcher. Nyona was trying to be as unnoticeable as possible so the vorcha never knew what hit it. Ready, Nyona pulled the trigger bringing the vorcha down with one shot. She radioed he others, "Keep behind something. Vorcha always come in Packs…"

Rang noted, "Why is it that you can make the bad jokes and not me?"

"Because I'm squad leader." Nyona swapped her sniper rifle for her assault rifle, "Let's move!"

* * *

At the same time, in a galaxy far, far away… the Acclamator I-class Star Destroyer, Atonement, was on the planet Plooma. Atonement and the rest of the fleet it was a part of, have recently discovered a second Sigma Device. The Sigma Device, nicknamed in honor of its original discoverers Sigma Squad, was found by almost undetectable energy signature. It was only though a vision experienced by their Jedi General that they were able to find it. For the past two months they have been excavating the area, uncovering, along with the mass accelerator, the remains of what appeared to have been a research station.

On the scene, the former advisor to Sigma Squad, Dag, who had changed his name to Aay'han, was overseeing operations. His new name meant "remembering and celebrating" for always referring to the lost squad. Aay'han took all of the training he had learned from them and soon was trained to be a commander, due to his commitment to keeping his fellow soldiers alive and ensuring the missions were successful. He now donned the Phase II clone trooper armor along with his unit's color of green. Aay'han added the antenna shaped rangefinder to the side of his helmet and took on the pauldron, pieces of padded material worn around the neck and shoulders, though he opted out of wearing the karma always saying Rang would make jokes about it. The device was fully unearthed but unlike the one Sigma Squad discovered, the core was not active. Aay'han was helping his fellow brothers in the excavation itself.

Along with all of the clones, their Jedi General recruited a science team from the University of Sanbra for their exceptional sentientology and xenobiology programs. The lead scientist was a female Draethos by the name of Silis Pyth. The professor was in her early three hundreds, though her people have been known to live past a thousand years. Her scales were a light blue hue. Her people's large teeth were visibly apparent as any of her kind. Being reptilian with no lips does not help exaggerate the overbite look but she was very fluent in her speech. As a reptilian, she did not have the distinct mammary glands within her breasts as her people were born from eggs and their teeth already grown in. Her four fingers ended with narrow tips almost resembling claws. In between these fingers were membranes that helped her ancient cave dwelling ancestors to climb around the slippery rocks.

Professor Pyth was savaging though what data she could successfully recover and record. Aay'han was looking for the professor to get a status update on their progress. "Professor Pyth. Professor Pyth." She finally turned after taking snapshots of odd hieroglyphs, odd being they looked like they were carved in long after the wall was constructed.

"Ah, commander, its good you are here. This ancient, and relatively primitive race, were on the verge of learning how to miniaturize this mass acceleration device, which is odd. One would think a civilization would start small and move to building the larger version, but some civilizations have jumped the gun as they say. It appears they were unable to find any more of this unknown element, or Element X as I sometimes deem it, which was essential to the device's function. And once we can find a cipher to decrypt the language, the learning possibilities are almost endless." Professor Pyth often rambled on like this when talking about such scientific discoveries.

Aay'han has tried to stop her a few times before, but after working with her for some time he's learned to just let her vent. "So, how much more information do you think can be found here?"

She handed him a datapad stating, "I believe that's the extent of it. My associates and I used the droids to recover what little data we could from the surviving electronic devices, we studied the fossilized remains, and we are starting to study the device itself. Other than trying to learn the language itself and verbalization, I believe this is all we are going to learn about these peoples for now. The device on the other hand, could give use new possibilities for supply transportation. Instant transit from a Mid-Rim agricultural world to a civilized Core or Mid-Rim world."

Aay'han asked her, "So this is all were going to get. Is it safe to move the Sigma Device? Do we have to worry about it blowing up or something?"

The professor couldn't help but laugh to herself, "I'm sorry…no we don't have to worry about such things happening if we load it onto the ships. At least we don't think anyway. It is a transportation device, not a weapon. But if you want to be certain we could wait for the official evaluation from the survey team." Pyth was looking around, "Say, where is your General by the way?"

Aay'han turned towards the device, "Probably helping the others finishing the excavation or something along those lines. Why, do you need him?"

Pyth was gathering her equipment, "Just wondering. Sometimes he calls me, and I don't hear him. Telepathic or radio." Draethos also possessed the ability to communicate with others telepathically, though they could not invade the mind of another like Jedi or Sith.

Soon enough though, Dagger called over the radio. "Professor Pyth. Aay'han. This is Dagger. The survey team has just finished their review of the device, and it doesn't sound good."

Pyth then asked, "Could you please put Richard on."

It took a few moments before the radio buzzed again. "Professor Pyth? One of the analysis droids the Jedi 'barrowed' from the Jedi Temple have found series of cracks throughout the structure. From what the droids have determined, they calculate that we'd probability only get one use out of the Mass Accelerator before it permanently becomes defunct."

Pyth responded, "Thank you, Richard. Please continue with studying the device and…"

The early warning alarms suddenly went off before she could say another word. One of the clone naval officers soon reported, "Alert! The probe droids have detected several Cronau radiation signals at the edge of the system. Video images have confirmed, Separatist forces."

The Jedi started issuing orders, "To all, we will be pulling out immediately. Anything that cannot be brought onto the ships will be left here, and destroyed, along with the Sigma Device."

Some of the scientists had issues with what the Jedi had ordered, "We cannot permit this scientific discovery be destroyed like the last one! We must defend this artifact!"

The comm. was silent for some time. Soon it came to life on everyone's channel, "This is Jedi Knight, Garek Syssok. I am ordering the evacuation of most units, as well as the science team and any research that can be transported. I don't want any more than a company that wants to try and assist me in defending the Sigma Device. If necessary, we will destroy the Sigma Device like the original, and with any luck, we can leave with the remaining gunships and ARC-170 fighters before the destruction. May the Force be with us all."

Aay'han was the first to respond, "Sir, this is Aay'han. With all due respect, we've been assigned to you soon after G-day. Sigma Squad died defending the Republic, I will stay."

Dagger also answered, "That's right. I was one of the last to be with them, we followed orders back then, but now it's our choice. I'm making my stand here."

Soon other clone troopers also answered, "The clanker general himself could show up and I won't retreat."

"These clankers won't lay a single bolt on the Sigma Device!"

"For the Republic, for Sigma Squad, and for all of those who have died in this war, they shall not pass me. The _Bes'uliik_ Company is here to stay!"

Garek could not argue if that was their choice. He then contacted the star destroyers. "Crew of the Acclamator _Atonement_ and Venator _Mandokarla_, you will keep the skies clear of fighters and bombers. Crew of the Acclamator _Salvation_ and Venator _Ramikadyc_, you are to take the science team and their research and return to Republic Space, in case we have to detonate."

Professor Pyth soon argued with Garek. "I'm sorry but I may be a scientist, but I do know how to defend myself. I do however, want the others to flee, but I will stay."

Aay'han then followed her up, "There's not much point arguing with her, unless you want to use that Jedi Mind Trick?"

The Jedi didn't have time to argue, "Fine, Aay'han you're in charge of protecting her. We don't have much time, we need to set up our defenses!"

* * *

The Separatist fleet consisted of five Recusant-class light destroyers, three, Lucrehulk-class Droid Control Ships and leading the fleet was a Providence-class destroyer. At command was a T-series tactical droid, designated TX-95. The droid was given the coordinates of a significant scientific discovery by a reprogrammed MSE-series mouse droid.

An OOM command battle droid reported to TX-95, "Sir, the fleet will reach the planet within twenty minutes."

The fairly larger tactical droid simply responded, "Excellent. Proceed as planned."

The yellow head droid answered, "Roger, roger."

* * *

After Rang fired an anti-armor round and took cover, he turned to Nyona, "Hey, have you ever had that funny feeling where someone's talking about you or someone you know is going to be in trouble soon?"

Nyona simply answered him, "Nope." She then pulled the trigger of her sniper rifle taking down the last Vorcha Heavy.

Rasen could only tell Rang, "I think this is one of those moments when Bev would say, 'Less talking more shooting'."

As more vorcha continued to enter, Rang couldn't help but comment, "I really think a Trandoshan would come in handy right about now!"

Tare was finishing a vorcha off when he asked, "Rang, you and your brothers keep mentioning these 'Trandoshan' things. What are they and why would you want it here?"

Rang switched to the DC-17m's blaster configuration and explained while gunning down a few vorcha, "A Trando, is an ugly reptilian humanoid. They believe the more kills one gets in a lifetime, the better the afterlife will be for 'em. But let's send these guys there first."

The waves of vorcha seemed endless as they continued to push forward though the only doorway into the area. After dealing with the rocket-troopers, Nyona started to grab as many vorcha in her Biotic fields and started to blaze though them with her assault rifle. Tare was also using Nyona's Singularity fields. Rasen was very efficient with the laser-guided pistol, putting several vorcha down with one shot headshots. Rang was enjoying the fun, making great use out of nearby IEDs. The vorcha finally stopped appearing, with only three left, hiding under the balcony they were using. The balcony's wall was protecting them from the vorcha but they couldn't shoot at them either. Tare turned to look at the others, "So, do we go down there or do we have something else planned for them?"

Rang tossed a round, brown ball keeping the communication between them, "Here's one, fire in the hole!" The ball bounced against a pillar, going under the balcony area. They could hear one of the vorcha as he shrieked at the ball. A moment after the shriek, an explosion took place. Rang then waved he right hand in the air, "Yo, Rasen, shotgun me." The quarian tossed the M-23 Katana to the orange commando. Rang took the long way down, back towards the door they had entered earlier and down the stairway. Rang quietly looked around the corner finding three smoking vorcha. Rang kicked all three in the face before he shouted, "Clear."

Nyona led the quarians down a stair way that was behind them. Rasen made a bit joke when she noted, "You made a little mess here, Rang."

He just shrugged, "I've made bigger." Rang tossed Rasen back her shotgun. "As always, kills twenty-five, six, and seven were troublemakers."

Tare was looking over one of the krogan that was part of the group, "I kinda wish Vren was with us. I'm sure he wouldn't mind helping us kill these guys."

Rang corrected him while kicking a few vorcha, "Actually, Vren has told me he's more interesting in killing the head-honchos type Blood Pack himself. Cannon fodders, like these guys, he just likes to see dead."

Nyona was making sure all of her weapons were reloaded when she yelled at them, "Let's go boys. We don't have time for tea, so less chitchatting more walking and killing vorcha." Nyona led Rasen and Tare though the doorway without Rang. Passing through the second door, a krogan and a pair of vorcha appeared from around the corner opening fire.

Nyona and Rasen quickly took cover behind a pair of barrels to the left. Tare took cover behind debris on the right. Rang was still at the second door. While rummaging through his backpack, Rang radioed to the others, "I'd cover your eyes if I were you." Rang tossed a flash-bang into the room, to the feet of the vorcha. Rang was always gifted with good timing for his explosions.

The blinded Blood Pack were easily taken down, with Tare and Rasen finishing the two vorcha while Rang and Nyona tag teamed the krogan with tech and Biotics. Nyona kicked over the krogan and blasted an extra series of shots to his head. "We're almost there. We just need to kill any Blood Pack between us and the controls."

Continuing the group reached one last door. Nyona signaled them to be prepared, in particular with long range weaponry. Rasen was ready with the Phalanx pistol, Nyona grabbed the Carnifex pistol Mordin had given them earlier, Tare kept hold of his Vindicator Battle Rifle and Rang, not to his fashion, had the DC-17m rifle set to the sniper rifle configuration. With everyone set, they all gave Nyona a signal that they were ready.

Nyona opened the door and they saw four vorcha on the other end of the room. Entering the room, the team had their weapons at the ready. One of the vermin moved forward to speak while the others were eager with trigger fingers. The vorcha started screaming, "You no come here. We shut down machines, break fans! Everyone choke and die! Then Collectors make us strong!"

Nyona used her HUD to indicate targets for the squad, "I think it time to finish you worms once and for all."

The vorcha that spoke then roared, "Collectors want plague! You work for doctor, turn on machines put cure in air. We kill you first!"

Before it could finish with its last scream, Nyona shot the vorcha in the head with the pistol before it could reach for the Missile Launcher, "Not if we kill you first." That was the signal for the others to attack as well. Rasen tossed an Overload tech at the pyro trooper. Rang was using his HUD, during the conversation, to zoom in on the vorcha heavy trooper. After Nyona kill her vorcha, Rang pulled the trigger before it could get out of the way. Tare quickly put down the last vorcha.

Rang started to scan the area for any hidden thermal readings. He picked up several. "Hey guys, lets wrap this thing up fast, before more Blood Pack descend upon on us like a _jai'galaar_."

Tare and Rang kept watch while Nyona and Rasen checked the controls to the fans. Rasen checked the systems and she didn't like it. "I have good news and bad news. The good news is we can insert the cure from here at the central console."

Tare asked, "Then what's the bad news?"

Rasen turned to Tare and Rang, "Bad news is the vorcha did a number on the control panel here so we'll have to go to the two separate fan controls themselves to turn them back on and I doubt the vorcha will just let us waltz over to do that."

Rang walked over to the central console, "Well then, let's set this baby up for a mass curing." Rang pulled out the vial from his pack and inserted the vial into the machine. As soon as the machine started up, more vorcha started to appear.

Tare took cover behind one of the pillars as soon as his shield started to buckle. Tare returned fire after his shield recharged. After falling one of the pests, rockets started to fly from an upper balcony. Nyona grabbed her sniper rifle and took cover behind an outcropping. The heavy troops were focused on keeping Tare pinned. Nyona popped one of the heavies with Rasen and Rang helping clean up the other vorcha. Before the last heavy could try and help his fellow vorcha, Nyona took his head. Rang burned the last vorcha with an Incinerate tech.

Nyona had to think about the situation before she asked Rang, "Rang, how many Blood Pack are here? And how many are coming?"

The thermal scanner quickly scanned the area. "Not bad. 'Bout eight guarding the fan controls and another thirteen on their way as we stand. Personally I think we should mine the door and bring the whole wall down on them!"

Tare could only question Rang's logic, "Then how would we get out?"

Nyona had a better idea, "Forget that. The vorcha will probably pull out once the cure starts to circulate though the district. Rang take Rasen, Tare's coming with me. We activate both fans and the vorcha should fall back."

Rasen looked at her, "And if they don't?"

Rang happily answered her with his bomb happy disposition, "We blow them to smithereens and dance on the ashes."

Nyona and Tare took the fan control on the left while Rang and Rasen were to activate the right one. The groups didn't encounter any vorcha until they got closer to the doors. The vorcha came out in pairs, one with an Avenger assault rifle and one with a flamethrower, and both sides had two pairs. Nyona pulled the first vorcha with her Biotics and shot it down. Tare was able to light one of the pyro's gas tanks causing it to explode. They kept behind the columns as the second pair started to attack. Nyona crushed the gas tank on the pyro's back. Tare then fired on the compressed tank causing it to explode sooner. Nyona then used a Biotic Charge to send the last vorcha flying against one of the columns. Nyona grabbed the vorcha by its throat. She started to glow blue and crushed it with her Biotics. Nyona then threw the dead vorcha over the edge and into the abyss.

On the other side, Rasen was able to overload one of the pyro vorcha but Rang's Incinerate tech was taken by one of the other vorcha before it hit the other pyro. Rang grabbed his LJ and fired at the feet of one of the vorcha. The vorcha wasn't hit by the initial blast and walked on top of the energy. The energy sent the vorcha flying in the air. With that distraction, as the other vorcha looked up, Rasen took the opportunity to get close and shotgun the vorcha. The flying vorcha fell hard, but with how fast one could regenerate, it wasn't going to keep it down long. Rang was next to the vorcha as he shoved the concussion rifle into the vorcha's mouth. Rang kicked the flamethrower out of the vorcha's hands saying, "I think this can be called a head trauma to the extreme." The shocking effect of the EMP bayonet was stopping the vorcha from fighting back, as Rang pulled out his DC-15s pistol and pulled the trigger three times over the heart.

The two two-man teams reached the fan controls. Rasen radioed to the others, "Nyona, this is Rasen. We are waiting and ready to activate the fans."

Nyona answered, "Alright. Activate on three. Three." Both sets of fans buzzed to life as the air started to blow throughout the quarantined Gozu District. Just as Nyona had hoped, the vorcha started to retreat from the district now that the plague has been cured.

* * *

**A/N: **That bit in the Star Wars-verse is a build up for a future chapter(I can't just go bam something happened, it needs a build up and time to gestate). The 'cronau radiation' thing is the radiation created when a ship enters/exits hyperspace. A reminder for non-Star Wars followers, Acclamators are the ones we see in Episode II(Clone Wars) and Venators are the larger ones shown in Episode III(Revenge of the Sith). Also, Draethos, just think of the Great Sith War Jedi Master Odan-Urr(even simpler the guy who created the famous form of the Jedi Code). I know I cheaped out a bit on the fight(two actually), but come on, that first fight was just plain annoying and the team had enough people to avoid the serious pain in the environmental control area. Also, I've questioned why, even with our pistols at the ready, we could not have a Renegade option to just shot the vorcha like we do with the Weyrloc Clanspeaker(long winded krogan) and that one Eclipe Sisterhood Initiate, why not this ugly too?

**Mando'a Translation: **Aay'han(AY-ye-haan)- bittersweet perfect moment of mourning and joy - "remembering and celebrating"

Bes'uliik(BES-oo-LEEK)- basilisk war droid

Mandokarla(MAN-doh-KAR-lah)-having the "right stuff", showing guts and spirit, the state of being the epitome of Mando virtue

Ramikadyc(RAH-mee-KAHD-eesh)-commando state of mind - an attitude that he/ she can do anything, endure anything, and achieve the objective. A blend of complete confidence and extreme tenacity instilled in special forces during training. Can also be used informally to describe a determined, focused person.

jai'galaar (JAI-gah-LAR)- shriek-hawk


	22. A New Twist

**A/N: **Happy Holidays eveybody and a Happy New Year(because I'm not going to be able to update before then). This is my present to you guys before the end of the year. Happy reading...

* * *

The Mandalorians returned to Mordin's clinic to see the doctor looking at a laptop, "Environmental systems engaged. Airborne viral levels dropping. Patients improving. Vorcha retreating. Well done, Mandalorians. Thank you." Mordin then moved across to examine a patient.

Daniel then added, "And thank you from me, as well. Those batarians would have killed me. For a second there, I thought you guys were going to shoot them even after they let me go."

Rang then stepped forward, "We Mandalorians may be warriors but we do have our honor."

Mordin simply noted, "Merciful of you. Risky. Would have killed them myself."

Nyona blatantly said, "I would have too."

Daniel was shocked to hear such things come from the salarian's mouth. The human then confronted him about his comment, "Professor? How can you say that? You're a doctor. You believe in helping people."

Mordin then rebutted, "Lots of ways to help people. Sometimes heal patients. Sometimes execute dangerous people. Either way helps. Go check on the patients. Lots of work to do. Think about what I said." Soon after Daniel left the room Mordin started talking again, "Good kid. Bit naïve. He'll learn. Letting him take over the clinic. Should be able to handle it now that vorcha are gone."

Still a bit impatient, Nyona asked, "We've cured the plague. Are you ready to help us?"

Mordin nodded his head, "Yes. Unexpected to be working with Mandalorians. Many surprises. Just need to finish up here at the clinic. Won't take long. Meet you at your ship. Looking forward to it."

Before they could leave the room, Araniik contacted them. "Rang, how's the mission going?"

Rang responded, "It's going great. We got to see Nyona's old hangout, blew up some Blood Pack, and cured a plague. Mordin just agreed to meet us back at the ship too. We were just about to leave and…"

Aran interrupted, "Change in plans. I want you to escort the professor over to Afterlife when he's ready. I'm sending the rendezvous coordinates. Contact me before you head out."

Something about the call didn't feel right to any of them. Rasen was the first to speak her mind, "Did Aran seem nervous or something to anyone else?"

Rang could only answer her, "Aran nervous, like a hot summer day on Hoth. He doesn't get nervous, over protective perhaps, but never nervous."

Tare just looked to the group, "Should we stay or do we return to the ship?"

Nyona had enough time down memory lane as she started to leave the room, "Rang should be fine on his own with the salarian. I'm going to take a nice hot bath and sleep this off. You quarians coming or not?"

Rang could only shrug looking at Rasen, "Come on, what's the worst that can happen, a Cerberus ambush? I'm sure it's just our imagination. Go on back to the ship, I'll be fine."

Rasen still didn't feel right but she knew Aran wouldn't do anything outright stupid, like Rang sometimes. "Just be careful, Rang." The commando nodded and the two quarians left with Nyona.

Behind Mordin, Rang noticed a batarian that looked just like the one he had saved earlier. When he came into view of the batarian, the alien started to speak, "I…I know you. From the apartment. You found me. You told Mordin about me, didn't you? You…you saved my life."

Rang was being his goofy self again as he told the batarian, "Yeah, well all in a day's work for a guy like me. But, given a certain situation, I'm sure another genuine sentient would have helped out too."

The batarian felt bad about his initial reaction towards Rang as he felt he needed to apologize in some way, "I was wrong about you, human. I was wrong about a lot of things."

Rang still couldn't take it seriously, "Well, I hope the rest of your day, and life, work out for ya."

The batarian then thanked him, "I owe you my life, human. Thank you."

Rang passed Mordin as he said, "Sorry doc, but there seems to be a change in plans. I'll be waitin' for ya next to the receptionists when you're ready to leave."

* * *

Garrus had finished getting suited back up in his armor. The right side of his blue armor carried most of the damage. Part of the right shoulder piece was broken off, and a section of the collar region had signs of heavy damage along with a few bullet holes. The only damage on the armor's left half as a lightning bolt shaped graze below Garrus' left mandible and blast damage on his back, above his hip, from the missile. The medics were forced to add cybernetics to his right side to help his body and so he could hear from that ear again. With several medi-gels, the cybernetics was covered by healing flesh. The rest was scar tissue now, so they used a synthetic patch to cover it. The patch covered his mandible joint and extended to the back of his head. Part of the patch covered part his neck, front half, continuing under his suit.

Walking out of the infirmary, Araniik was waiting for him, in full gear. Garrus asked the waiting commando, "Nobody would give me a mirror. How bad is it?"

Sigma Squad has worked with Garrus on a few jobs during the past two years and they have befriended the other's group. "Just finish repainting the other half of your tattoo on your face and you'll look hell of a lot better than half the guys we've pummeled together."

Garrus couldn't help but laugh about it but his mandible was still vulnerable. "Oh…don't make me laugh, damn it. My face is barely holding together as it is."

Aran then said, "I'm sorry about your squad. I wish we could have done something sooner about it had we known…"

Garrus stopped him, "You have nothing to be sorry about. It's my own damn fault that got them killed."

"Death is one of the hardest burdens to carry. As leaders, we must carry this weight and strive to make amends in the future." Aran then looked back up, "That's what a wise man use to tell me."

Garrus wasn't sure what the sudden 'life lesson' was for so he asked, "And that means?"

Aran shrugged, "This is how he explained it to us the first time, 'We cannot change what has happened or those who have been lost but we can learn to do better in the present and future.' Or so he says it's supposed to mean."

Garrus almost turn crossed on him when he said, with a bit of frustration in his voice, "That still doesn't mean it's not my fault that ten good men are now dead."

Aran looked away, "I'm just trying to help you. I'd be upset too if it was my team. Wait…" Aran noticed something wrong, "you were a team of twelve. What happened to the last man?"

Garrus told him, "Lantar Sidonus betrayed us. And I will find him."

Aran was no stranger to revenge but he didn't want Garrus to go too far like others he had seen, "Just be careful not to let revenge consume your life. Come on Garrus, we'll be meeting Shepard soon."

As the two of them were about to leave the ship, Nyona, Rasen and Tare were boarding. Nyona had removed her helmet during decontamination. She was giving the two a dirty stare, "Where are you two going?"

Garrus heard some of the commotion about Shepard and Cerberus and thought it would be better if Aran tried to explain. Aran seemed hesitant but he answered her, "I wanted to scope out some parts I was thinking of getting for the ship. Also, we were going to see if anyone believes 'Archangel' is alive or not."

Rasen then asked him, "So why did you want Rang to meet you in Afterlife then?"

Aran followed up on that one, "I wanted to meet the professor before he came aboard the _Tervho_. I'm sure he'll be there by the time we finish finding what we want. We'll be back soon." The commando and turian entered the decontamination chamber after Nyona, Rasen and Tare left. The doors closed and the duo left.

Garrus turned to Aran, "Are you sure it's OK for them not to know about Shepard?"

"We already encountered him before actually." Aran explained, "We met on the colony Freedom's Progress. Truthfully, we were there to help find a quarian thought to have been taken, in the hopes he wasn't. Luckily he wasn't, but what wasn't expected was the revived Shepard, or the two Cerberus flunkies behind him. I'll explain to the others soon but right now I promised the Commander you and Mordin Solus would be going with them." Aran started fiddling with his omni-tool. He created a dummy profile, separate from anything he or his group use. Aran sent Shepard a rough time of when to meet him in Afterlife for the handoff.

* * *

Rang was talking with the professor as they continued to the designated location. "So doc, what do you know about the Collectors, beside wanting 'exotic' specimens and almost wiping out Gozu District?"

Mordin had only speculations and he let Rang know it. "Can only hypothesize. No solid proof. Can only assume specimens used for experiments of some type. No other data to speculate further."

"Too bad, cause we have video evidence that the Collectors are the ones behind the human colony attacks these past two years…and something more."

Now Mordin was getting excited, "Interesting. How did you find this out? On the scene of attack. No. No. Would probably have been taken as well. Mandalorians too similar to humans. Collectors probably wouldn't see a difference."

Rang interrupted, "A quarian happen to on the planet and wasn't taken. He needed medical attention otherwise, nothing a good therapist can't fix. We also stumbled upon a…well it's something. I've already stepped beyond my supposed expertise examining the thing."

The location was a private room, the same room previously used by the Blue Suns to recruit freelancers to help kill Archangel. Aran and Garrus were already seated. Aran stood up to greet them, "Professor Solus, a pleasure to meet you."

Mordin shook his hand examining him in the usual Mordin manner, "Red, black armor. Four dots on right breast plate. Leader of Mandalorians and Sigma Squad, Araniik, or Aran. Also, only one who wears odd leather leg protection."

"Yeah, well this kama has helped more times than you can imagine." Aran moved aside, "Please take a seat. We're still waiting for at least one more person."

Rang was starting to get a bad feeling about this but wouldn't say it as it has jinxed them in past missions, both here and their galaxy.

It was another five minutes before the doors opened up. It was Commander Shepard, along with the Cerberus flunky, Miranda Lawson. Rang was a bit upset about the situation but he had trust in his brother. Shepard shook Aran's hand telling him, "Sorry, Miranda insisted on coming."

Aran didn't want her here but he could work around that. "Not a problem. It did concern her greatly to take Garrus, despite his almost life threatening injuries. Now, down to why you're here." Aran turned to Garrus and nodded.

Garrus nodded back and stood up. He walked to Shepard and was now next to Miranda. Rang started yelling at him in Mandalorian, "Aran, _me'ven o'r te gai be Manda'yaim banar_?"

Aran replied to the, slightly, angered Rang, "_Pare_!_ Ni rejorhaa'i gar bal anade du'caryc_."

Rang simply warned him, "_Meh ibic dajun trattok'o, gar slana gana jurkad de vode_."

Aran then told Rang, "Rang, _werdla orhaa be'al'verde baar. Gedet'ye. Echoy par mayen_."

Unfortunately due to Cerberus' unexpected presence and Rang's shock due to recent events, the conversation was on their speakers and the others heard it. Mordin was fascinated by the language, "Interesting. Mandalorian language is unusual to say the least. Have not updated translators or Mandalorians opted not to enter their language into database."

Rang answered Mordin, "What's the point of knowing a language if we can't keep some conversations secret from others."

Aran turned to the doctor telling him, "I'm sorry Professor Solus, but you'll be working with Commander Shepard, and Cerberus. I can only assume it has something to do with the Collectors and their connection to the colony attacks." Aran took Mordin's hand and then leaned in to whisper, "Here's a device we can use to track you. There's a second one for Garrus. Use it only if they are not trying to stop the Collectors. And tell Garrus in private, away from any Cerberus eyes, ears or bugs."

Mordin nodded and walked over to Shepard, "Will be interesting, working with Cerberus."

Miranda was about to offer them credits, but instead the two commandos walked past them before she could activate her omni-tool. Other than their backs, they only saw the blue lit numbers on their packs, 73 and 45. Now Aran kept their conversation private, "_Mar'eyi mayen_?"

"_Luubid meg nu'ni guuror bic_." Rang explained, "It was very subtle, but I found a fairly undetectable signal coming from Shepard. Not the armor, I mean somewhere in him. If I could do a more through and extensive scan then what I was able to do, I could find the what, and with Bev, Forta or Rasen they could kill it. If I had to guess, it's probably some kind of tracker or monitoring signal from one of the cybernetic parts they must have put into him to bring his body back from the dead. Now are you going to tell me or do I have to wait until I see Rasen slap you upside the head?"

Aran sighed before he answered him, "I think Shepard is being level with us. Cerberus brought him back from the dead to fight the Collectors and stop the attacks on human colonies. After that, I think the real 'fun' going to begin, that's if Shepard is still himself. Rang, think of Shepard as a Jedi, he's a symbol for this galaxy, and if these Reapers are as real as you and I think, only he can rally this galaxy against them. But if Shepard has truly joined Cerberus, we'll hunt them down and bring them to the Citadel Council. And if they try to resist, we'll fight back."

* * *

Back on the Tervho, Aran had, somewhat, repeated what he had told Rang, minus the Jedi reference or the Reapers, and more detailed. Most of the crew were fine with the new situation but others were not so. In particular was Rasen, as she did slap Aran's face. Aran could have easily avoided her or grabbed her before her hand could hit him, but he didn't. "Aran, how could you? You're letting those bosh'tets take them!"

Aran said nothing. Prudii stepped in between the two, trying to calm Rasen, "Araniik explained. Not for Cerberus, for Shepard. Different, if he's the same."

Rang then added, "Look, boss man gave Garrus, and Mordin sort of, special trackers Bev made, just in case Shepard really has joined those dogs. Most of us are friends with Garrus and Mordin owes us one for saving Gozu District. Hey, I was opposed to the idea too, but with Garrus, I know he'll keep us in the loop if Shepard has gone rouge."

Aran finally spoke, "We'll settle this the Mando'ad way. If any of you wish to challenge me, we go to the Battle Circle."

No one responded at first but soon a voice spoke out. It was Vren. "You took this beaten and lost krogan under your wing, and gave him reason to fight again. You've earned my respect this past year and a half, not many can say they've ever earned that. I have to admit, there have been times I've questions your choices, but you've never put us into a situation we couldn't find a way out of, violently or otherwise. Hell, if you guys never showed up, half of us would be dead and the other half drunk in a bar or wasting our time in places that would be wasting our talent. You and your team turned this collection of sorry sods into a well oiled-military machine, and are damn good. I'm willing to stand with you."

Forta then spoke up, "I've never really been a people person, but you've always made sure we did our best whatever it was. I haven't seen you show favoritism to anyone. You took me off this pit, I'm grateful."

Kix simply shrugged, "I get to fly again. I'm not too picky. I really like that you guys being somewhat lenient about onboard stuff. Otherwise you run a tight ship in all of the right places."

Nyona looked away as she gave her opinion, "You've saved my life several times and…and you never held that against me or used it as leverage for anything. You just ask."

Beviin also turned to Araniik, "Sir, Sigma Squad will always be behind you, one hundred percent."

Prudii added, "_Ni'ven shekemi gar, Mand'alor_."

Araniik still wasn't willing to accept the honor, "I've told you, I'm not Mandalore."

Rang butted in, "You may not want to accept it, but you are our Mandalore vod, in every sense of the title." He then turned to look at Rasen, "So Ras, you still want to leave, or fight Aran?"

Rasen walked back up to Aran and lowered her head, "I guess I let Cerberus blind me, Aran. I'm sorry I hit you."

Aran happily accepted her apology, "I figured you were going to do something like that and I wasn't going to blame you for it. I'm just glad you're willing to stay. I'd miss your occasional pessimism against Rang's explosism." Aran noticed Tare had not said anything yet. "What do you say, Tare? Do you have anything you want to vent out?"

Tare quickly answered, "Aran, I volunteered to join you and Sigma Squad. I still don't trust Cerberus, but if you believe Commander Shepard can be trusted, I will too. For now that is."

Aran looked to his non-combatant crewmembers, "Prath, do you have anything against my decision?"

The volus shook his stout head, "None Araniik. Some choices need to be made that not everyone will agree with. This is a risky gamble you are taking. Let's us all hope that bet pays off, in our favor."

Soon, one by one, others also voiced their trust in Aran. With his crew fully behind him again, Araniik turned to Rang, "Rang, see if there's any work we might want, to vent this frustration."

Rang was humming to himself as he checked a laptop. His humming soon stopped and his face turned pale. He said nothing, just stared at the monitor. It took a few minutes but he finally spoke, "We need to get to Ilos, now!"

* * *

**A/N: **Things are finally picking up and I have a few ideas about a certain events. Don't worry I won't spoil anything and I hope you all like my story(and how events are unfolding).

**Mando'a Translation: **There are a few explinations needed for a few sentences. Example: To say "It's good", a Mandalorian will often just say jate (good) rather than bic jate - it (is) good - or the full form with the verb, bic cuyi jate. Also: A prefix system indicates tenses. Colloquially, Mandalorians use only the present tense, but they adopted the prefixes ru (past) and ven (future) when dealing with species who need specific tenses.

Aran, me'ven o'r te gai be Manda'yaim bana?(ah-RAHN, mey-VAYN ohr teh name beh MAN-dah-YAI-eem)- Aran, what in the name of Mandalore(the planet) is going on?

Pare!(PAH-ray)- Hang on!

Ni rejorhaa'i gar bal anade du'caryc.(Nee ree-JOR-har-EE gahr bahl ah-NAH-day doo-KAR-eesh)- I'll explain it to you and the others later.

Meh ibic dajun trattok'o, gar slana gana jurkad de vode.(mey ee-BIK dah-JOON TRAT-oh-ko, SLAH-na GAN-a JOOR-kad deh vohd-ay)- If this plan backfires, your going to have to be attacked by the crew.

Rang, werdla orhaa be'al'verde baar. Gedet'ye. Echoy par mayen.(rahng, WAIRD-lah OR-haar AHL-vair-day BAR-oor. Geh-DET-yay. eh-CHOY pahr MY-enn)- Rang, stealthfully scan the Commander's body. Please. Search for anything.

Mar'eyi mayen?(mah-AY-ee MY-enn)- Find anything?

Luubid meg nu'ni guuror bic(loo-BEED mayg noo-nee GOO-roh beek)- Enough that I don't like it.

Ni'ven shekemi gar, Mand'alor(nee-vehn SHEH-kay-mee gahr, MAHN-dah-lor)- I'll always follow you, Mandalore.


	23. The Order…

**A/N: **Sorry for the long delay but I couldn't stop writing. It got so bad that I wrote 3 chapters(two here, one over in other story). I've kept you all waiting long enough on with the story...

* * *

The tactical droid TX-95 used the three Droid Control Ships to keep the two Republic Star Destroyers occupied while the rest of the fleet land on the planet. The _Atonement_ and _Mandokarla_ were holding their own against the three CIS ships and warned the others about the incoming danger.

The clones under Garek Syssok's command received additional training from him to fight smarter and harder. All members of _Bes'uliik_ Company were taking cover behind the ruins and various other positions. Dagger and the other pilots were ordered by Syssok to wait for his order before attacking. Without Dagger's permission, Professor Pyth had loaded his gunship with all of the copies of the research from the site.

TX-95 had studied every available piece of data about all of the Jedi, their tactics and how they lead their troopers. It had formulated a plan to show his tactical superiority. But the OOM command droid had objections to the plan. "Sir, it would be faster and simpler to just bombard the area from orbit or the upper atmosphere."

TX-95 did not agree, "Negative. Jedi have a higher probability of survival. Our objectives are to capture the device and kill Jedi. The clones are a small variable that can be crushed out of the equation. Begin landing the troops and prepare the tanks."

The OOM droid continued to protest, "Sir, the forest would delay the tanks and the droids would arrive individually."

TX-95 didn't care, "I already have a plan to use that to our advantage. Now land the ships!"

* * *

The droid forces started to leave the ships. The OOM droid then asked TX-95, "What now, sir?"

TX-95 was in one of the Armored Assault Tanks when it started to order the droids, "Flame units, burn these trees down. Send the flames to the Jedi and his clones. The AATs will follow, knocking over any tree still standing."

Twelve B1 and B2 units moved up. The B2 were retrofitted Ohma-D'un supers and the B1s were outfitted with larger backpacks and all of the units' arms were augmented to fire the flames. The flame droids made quick work of the wooded area and made a path for the marching army to proceed through. The OOM then shouted to the other droids, "All units, being the march on the device."

TX-95 then stopped all of the droids, "Negative. Three thousand units and five tanks will be used as the first wave. The rest will wait here until further instructions are given from me and me alone. We will draw out this battle as long as possible. A tired Jedi will be easier to kill. Now first wave: advance."

* * *

The clones could see the smoke as it started to blanket the sky. "Damn droids. Are they planning to smoke us out or barbeque us alive?"

Garek stood next to the trooper, "No. The tactical droid or whoever is leading them is truly tactful. Normally one might try to counter the flames now but we would also be exposed by doing such. Someone get Professor Pyth a helmet or at the very least a rebreather. Our aces will not be exposed because of the flames but we must be prepared to take action."

Garek was weird, even by Jedi standards. Garek was quite proficient in handling most blasters and was not afraid to use them. He was also more comfortable dealing with the Hutts or pirates then he was with the politicians on Coruscant or most civilians. Garek would not let most see him underneath the Mandalorian armor and helmet he somehow acquired and those that have never talk about it. His three fingered hands are the only indication that he was not human.

Aay'han was with Silis as she was adjusting the rebreather mask and a pair of goggles to her head. "Are you sure you don't want to be with Dagger in his gunship, professor?"

The Draethos grabbed a hold of a nearby DC-15S blaster rifle, "A hundred years ago, if you had asked me, I might have cut your head off. My people are warriors but we do have our aristocrats and politicians."

Aay'han checked the scope on his WESTAR-M5 blaster rifle as he asked, "What made you leave that for a life as a scientist?"

Pyth simply shrugged, "It was something about learning. I'm not sure how to put it to words. I know 'life or death situation' and all here but sometimes talking before a fight helps, or at least it does for me. I've always been a fast learner but my people are a stubborn bunch. Guess that's what happens when elder get to live long enough see their great-great-grandchildren and have authority over them. The only offworlders our people ever welcomed were Jedi. Being a Jedi was a high honor and many warriors aspired to be as powerful and skilled as they are. I was usually more interested in the offworlders themselves. Not that learning to fight and being a warrior wasn't great or anything, but after two centuries everything just seemed so repetitive and I think the xenophobia played a part as well. So I willingly was exiled from Thosa and eventually found my may to the University of Sanbra. Everything else after just fell into place."

Soon the sounds of the droids marching could be heard and the flames became more visible. Everyone remained behind cover even after the first droid came out of the burning woods. One of the B1 turned to the others, "Well there's the thing but no Jedi or clones. What now?"

One of the B2s readied its right arm's duel laser cannon telling the wimpy droid in a deeper tone, "We find them." The B2 started to open fire, shooting at the ruins and any other possible hiding place large enough to hide a humanoid. The AATs had also arrived knocking over the last trees standing between them and the relic.

* * *

One of TX-95's bridge staff reported, "Sir, we are detecting multiple Cronau radiation flares near the planet."

"What! The Republic should not be able to spare more troops." TX-95 was getting furious, "Where did they get the reinforcements?"

The B1 officer responded, "I don't know I'm not an intelligence droid."

TX then asked, "What about our nearby forces on Ossus, Garqi or the Ywllandr systems?"

The officer answered, "Let me see…our forces on Ossus have been destroyed, same with Garqi as well as the assault group in the Ywllandr system."

TX-95 simply threatened the droid, "I required updates on 'all' of our forces. I will deal with your failures personally. For now, send three Recusant destroyers to support the Lucrehulks. Do not let any of the Republic forces enter the planet's atmosphere or I will see to it personally that you are all dismantled. All infantry units, prepare to advance towards the relic. Leave no survivors."

* * *

The commanding officer of the _Ramikadyc_ radioed to Garek and the others, "Sorry we're late sir. We planned to get back sooner but we decided to call in some backup."

Garek was displeased at their return but he now had a few new plans that didn't end with all of them dying, "Captains, first deal with all of the droids in space. They should send reinforcements once enough of the ships have been destroyed. Keep them pinned. If possible, I also would like you to start destroying the ships that are still on the ground. Then help us with mopping up the rest on the ground."

"It'll be our honor sir. Alright lads, you all heard the General, let's do this." Along with the _Ramikadyc_ and _Salvation_, they were joined by a pair of Venator-class star destroyers and three Counsular-class cruisers. The star destroyers launched several ARC-170, V-wing and BTL-B Y-wing fighters, joining _Atonement_, _Mandokarla_ and their fighters.

* * *

At the dig site, Garek began to execute his plan. From behind the ruins, he grabbed one of the super battle droids and threw it against the others, knocking them to the ground. He then ran up onto one of the AATs and cut his way into the tank with a black-bladed lightsaber. Garek had research for some time just to find that very rare and special crystal. With a small opening cut into the tank, Garek grabbed a thermal detonator from his belt and tossed it into the tank. Garek then ran as fast as he could before the AAT exploded violently. The plan was executed as expected, the droids focused on the Jedi giving the clones the opportunity to strike hard. Four troopers used RPS-6 rocket launchers and destroyed the rest of the AATs. The others also began to cut down the droid forces.

The Jedi had disappeared and the clones continued their attack against the droids from behind the ruins. After a few minutes of fighting and losing five troopers, Aay'han then shouted on his speakers, "_Bes'uliik_ Company, fall back!" The clones continued to take cover behind various objects, taking down several droids while retreating to the unaffected forest line.

One of the B1s reported back to TX-95, "Sir, the clones are in retreat to the forest line."

"What about the Jedi?"

The B1 and the other droids continued their advance, "The Jedi has not been seen since his first strike."

TX-95 then ordered, "All units halt. Bombers decimate the clones." Two groups of seven bombers took off from the ships ready to destroy the area.

"Pilots, go!" Nine gunships and twelve ARC-170s broke through a holographic tree line and started to shoot down the bombers. Garek then pulled out a detonator, "Now we strike back." The detonator was linked to several buried explosives scattered around ruins, destroying many droids. They then continued their assault from behind the trees.

TX-95 was even more furious now, "Send out the advanced dwarf spider droids and droidekas. I want all vulture droids and tri-fighters launched now!"

Seeing all of the droid fighters coming at them, Dagger radioed to his fellow pilots, "Now the fun begins. Alright Razors, time to show our teeth!" The gunships and ARC-170s entered the fray, blasters blazing.

The destroyers were at the scene and quickly tried to blast though the trees. The Company was able to destroy a few of them before the Spider Droids appeared. The Spider Droids started opening fire at the trees, blasting several clones. Garek ordered, "Walkers, now!" From behind the trees three AT-TE walkers activated and started to destroy anything in their way. The stout six-legged walkers easily decimated the Spider Droids, pushing the droid forces back.

As things started to look up for them, all clone troopers received an encoded message from Command, "By order of Chancellor Palpatine, Execute Order 66." But the Jedi was nowhere to be seen.

Aay'han contacted Dagger and _Bes'uliik_ Company privately, "_Ni slana jorcu aruetii. Meh nu'gar aalar yaim'la bic, nu'ara'novor_."

He didn't get a response from anyone. After a few moments Dagger was the first to contact him, "I think I speak for everyone who understands when I say, _Rangir_!"

Aay'han wasn't expecting them to willingly follow but he was grateful none the less, "Dagger, _ni linibar gar mar'eyir jetii_." He then turned to the professor and asked her, "Professor Pyth, you said we could get one use out of the device right?"

She thought about it, "From what the droids' analysis yes, but first you'd have to activate the device and then you'd need to input the exact mass that would be traveling though. But I have no idea where you'd be sent, if you even survive the trip."

Aay'han then asked, "If we linked ships together with cables or something and input the mass for that as a whole would it work?"

Pyth pondered on the question while laying low, "Possible…but the only problem would be getting the exact mass of the ships and all of its passengers…but besides those problems I don't see anything that would stop it from working."

Aay'han then radioed to the rest of the company, "_Bes'uliike_, I need five volunteers for a suicide mission."

He was answered immediately, "This is Wreck, me and my squad will take the job. What do you need?"

"Escort Professor Pyth to the Sigma Device and defend her while she activates the device. Make sure she can get out of there alive!"

"You can count on us." Soon the five man squad arrived to Aay'han's location. Wreck took Pyth's hand, "This way professor. And stay close to me." She was lost as Aay'han's conversation with Wreck was between helmets.

Soon after, Dagger found Garek as he continued to fight droids on his own, occasionally taking a few down with a blaster. Dagger cleared the area, landing next to the Jedi, "I'm sorry if I'm disrupting you sir, but I need you to get aboard." Garek had trust in some clones but he has always had a lingering suspicion about them.

Dagger returned to the small clearing he took off from earlier with Aay'han waiting for them alone. Garek asked the commander, "What's going on now? We have not finished the battle."

Aay'han was truly sorry, "My apologies sir, but we have more pressing matters to deal with. Contingency Order 66 has been issued."

Garek had learned about some of the contingency orders the clones can receive but no one would ever discuss with him what 66 was. "Tell me in your own words, Commander Aay'han, what Order 66 is."

He stood at attention, "Sir. In the event that the Jedi act against the interests of the Republic and after specific orders verified as coming directly from the Supreme Commander, we GAR commanders are order to remove the Jedi by means of lethal force, and command of the GAR will revert to the Supreme Commander until a new command structure is established."

"So all this time, the Supreme Chancellor and Darth Sidious were one and the same. Everything makes sense now; how we were able to gather certain reports and they were able to disrupt various operations. All of the peace negotiations tore a sunder. All of these lives lost just so the Jedi Council could not see his true intent." Garek then stopped reflecting about truth and turned to the clone commander with lightsaber in hand, "So now what commander, are we to continue to play into the Sith's games or do you have something else in mind?"

"I already have something under way. We can't follow those orders if everyone thinks you're dead. An analysis team has determined that we would be able to get one use out of the Sigma Device, at best, before it becomes defunct. So the professor along with Wreck's squad, are activating the device now. Since we've been fighting to stop the Sith, I figured why not make this thing a giant paper weight."

While waiting for Wreck and the others, Dagger left his modified stealth LAAT. He was tying a carbon-rope around the nose of a nearby ARC-170 that wasn't being used to the gunship. He was conversing with the astromech droid already locked in place, "C3, are you ready to fly?" The red dome buzzed and whistled she was ready if Dagger was.

After Dagger finished tying the two ships together, Wreck, Professor Pyth and the last survivor of Wreck's squad returned. "The device is ready sir. All we need to do is get to it."

"Not exactly." Pyth continued, "I still need the correct mass to input. Luckily I was able to link to the device via this datapad. But for the device to properly send anyone, they need to fly from the other side of the two prongs towards them. That means…"

Garek finished for her, "Flying over the Separatist ships."

Aay'han then said, "Remember General, this is our choice. Two years ago if the order was called down, I'd probably carry it out and die trying. Truthfully, I think Sigma Squad made it through. That might be wishful thinking on my part, but we'll join them, one way or another."

Dagger was wearing an enclosed Phase II version of pilot armor as he shouted "We're ready to fly. Because I plan on pulling the ball turrets into the bay, it's going to be pretty tight back here. At least two of you are going to have to go in my ARC-170. Wreck, you and your boys were part of Razor Squadron's ground unit, one of you guys should know how to handle my girl."

"I do, sir."

Wreck placed his hand on the trooper's shoulder guard that spoke, "I'll join you, Six. Let's get the show on the road then shall we."

As everyone started to enter the gunship, Pyth was joining them. Aay'han tried to convince her not to, "Professor, you should stay here, I'm sure…"

Pyth just stopped him, "I won't let you have me miss out on the opportunity of a lifetime. Sure there's a percentage that we could die without realizing it but I have no regrets, except for not learning enough. I'm sure I can learn more in the afterlife or the next life, if there is a next life. Besides that the possibility of meeting the creators of these mass accelerators, which in itself would be fascinating, if they still live I mean."

Dagger just yelled at them, "Come on, we leaving or not?" Pyth entered the gunship and the doors closed shut, sealing air tight. The two ships took off together and started to make their approach towards the Sigma Device.

Aay'han made one last transmission to the rest of _Bes'uliik_ Company, "_Bes'uliike_, it has been an honor to fight alongside each and every one of you. This is an order from your commander, in your reports I want you to say the General fought valiantly against the Separatists and died fighting before Order 66 was issued."

The two ships were aided by the others as they cleared the air of any droids that tried to take them out. The AT-TEs were even targeting the Separatist ships' turrets. With the sky clear, it was now or never. The blue core was glowing just like the one Sigma Squad first found, with the three metal rings slowly spinning around the strange blue material. Pyth was calculating their relative mass, "Now for our relative mass, we have myself, a gunship filled with five clones in full armor, a Jedi in full Mandalorian armor and cloak, various numbers of armaments and copies of the research here."

Dagger added, "Don't forget about the rest of the supplies."

"Yes, yes I haven't forgotten. Now, along all of that we also have an ARC-170 fighter connected via carbon-rope, an astromech droid, and two more clones. That should put the mass at around…" Pyth entered the data as they were right below the spinning rings. The rings started to spin faster as the unknown material began to glow profusely.

Blue 'lightening' started to spark from the luminescent core as it surrounded the two ships, enveloping them with the strange material. As soon as the gunship and ARC-170 were totally enveloped, the two vessels were sent off like a slugthrower firing. The rings continued to spin for several seconds before finally giving out to the stress, caused by being buried for so long and the rapid spinning. The three rings cracked, shattering into several pieces, falling to the battlefield below crushing anything indiscriminately. Without the rings, the luminescent blue core dissipated into the atmosphere.

* * *

**A/N: **Now I know what some of you might be thinking but let me just say this Jedi had a closer connection to his troopers(even though he never expressed it normally). Also don't tell me all of the clone were willing to just follow Order 66, hell we have a number of commando and ARCs who both openly and quietly disobeyed these orders. I know, rope isn't necessary for multiple ships to use a Mass Relay at the same time but they don't know that.

**Mando'a Translation: **Normally I'd translate each word and let you guys learn what was said, this time is different. This time around I'm translating the sentences for you guys down here only because some of it is hard to understand without the words that are assumed in Mandalorian.

Mandokarla(MAN-doh-KAR-lah)- having the "right stuff", showing guts and spirit, the state of being the epitome of Mando virtue

Bes'uliik(BES-oo-LEEK)- basilisk war droid

Ramikadyc(RAH-mee-KAHD-eesh)- commando state of mind - an attitude that he/ she can do anything, endure anything, and achieve the objective. A blend of complete confidence and extreme tenacity instilled in special forces during training. Can also be used informally to describe a determined, focused person.

Ni slana jorcu aruetii. Meh nu'gar aala yaim'la bic, nu'ara'novor.(nee SLAH-na JOR-koo ah-roo-AY-tee. mey noo-gahr AH-la YAYM'la beek, noo-AH-rah-NO-vor)- I'm going to become a traitor. If you don't feel comfortable about it, then don't stand in the way.

Rangir!(RAN-geer)- To hell with it!

'Dagger', ni liniba gar mar'eyi jetii.(nee lee-NEE-ba gahr mah-AY-ee JAY-tee)- Dagger, I need you to find the Jedi.


	24. An unexpected reunion

**A/N: **And part 2 of this special two chapter update...

* * *

On Ilos, the security team sent by the Citadel to guard the Conduit from being used by any Terminus faction or terrorist cells. When the Conduit suddenly activated, the security captain made contact with the Citadel to confirm their Conduit was not active as well. Soon after, two unknown ships emerged from it. After the two ships appeared, the Conduit deactivated just as suddenly as it reactivated.

The two ships in questions were strange in design. The first one looked like some type of gunship or troop transport, a pair of turrets mounted on the front, matching with a blue beast design around it and two balls integrated into the wings covering the sides. On top of the first ship, it carried two cones that almost looked like missiles. On the back was a small turret. The second ship looked like a fighter. A more sleek design to it but it also had the same blue creature painted on its nose. The second ship had a large cannon attached on the underside of each wing. Like the first, the fighter also had small turrets on the tail end.

The turian captain tried to establish contact with the two ships. "This is Citadel Security. You are in a restricted area! Leave now or we will be forced to bring you down!" They were getting no response from either craft.

* * *

No one was expecting the inertia the Sigma Device put on them, or the sight they would see soon after. They were sent to a completely different world, covered in ancient stone and rusted metal architecture with withered overgrowth covering most of it. Dagger had opened the viewports in the gunship's doors to let the others see. Dagger then spoke to the others, "Are you guys seeing this."

Dagger's copilot, Swoop, responded, "I'm seeing it, and I think we were better off fighting the clankers."

Pyth was in awe of this strange place, "Look at the design of this aqueduct here…or is that a runoff system, architecture was never a forte of mine."

Suddenly over the radio one of the troopers said, "Damn it."

Dagger was the first to ask, "What's wrong Six? Is everything alright back there?"

Six answered, "The shield generator's down. We're going to need to fix that soon. C3's also reporting some type of communication is being picked up. Hold on I'll patch it through." The transmission was an angry sounding being speaking a strange and unheard of language. The voice echoed a bit as though it was in a cave.

It was difficult for Garek to understand, even with the Force, "He…he wants us to…land…or leave." Garek was struggling to keep his composure. Something has left several large wounds in the past that still echo loudly in the Force.

Aay'han didn't like the situation, "Dagger, you and Swoop think you can get us out of here?"

Dagger was flying in circles until a decision was made, "Sure, but where? Larty here can make it into space but without a hyperdrive we'd just float until we died. And I'm guessing the rest of this planet looks like this or worse."

* * *

The turian was beginning to lose his patience, "Sergeant, activate the defense towers. Fire a few warning rounds to wake them up. Buckle their kinetic barriers if you think you can do it without damaging them."

The sergeant manually took control over one of the gun towers stationed around the Conduit. The sergeant fired three bursts of five rounds. The first two bursts missed on purpose, but the last of rounds were aimed at the fighter. The first two missed but the last three were dead on, hitting the starboard wing, cutting it off.

* * *

"We're hit! We're hit! Stabilizers failing!"

Dagger tried to help them, "How bad is it? I'll try to bring you down." Having survived since the First Battle of Geonosis, Dagger was a skilled pilot but even with all of that experience, landing a spinning ship tied to them would be difficult.

Six tried to stop him, "Negative, negative. We lost the starboard wing. You can't help us now. I'm going to cut the line and try to make it planet side."

Wreck agreed, "Six's right. We came here to help save the General. Neither of us have any regrets." The ARC-170 began to swing until the carbon-rope was lined up with the port laser cannon and out of sight of the LAAT/s. Six then fired the laser cannon and cutting the rope, letting the ARC-170 go into a free-fall.

Even in a spin, Six was able to crash the ARC fighter onto a nearby plateau. Aay'han tried to establish that Wreck and Six were still alive, "Wreck, Six respond." All he was hearing was white noise. "Come guys answer me. If you're still alive say something. Groan if you can't speak!" Still nothing.

Instead of Six or Wreck, R4-C3 answered. The little astromech droid took a beating but was still online. Dagger then asked her, "C3, how are Wreck and Six are they still alive?" The little red droid buzzed about looking into it. C3 was an engineer not a medic but she tried to get a response. C3 wasn't sure and she didn't know what to do. "Just hang tight and protect them. We'll be down there with a medic soon."

* * *

The turian yelled, "What the hell was that! I didn't say shot them down!"

"I'm sorry sir. I guess they didn't have their shields engaged or something. Those shots shouldn't have done that."

"Damnit! I need a rescue team!" Six other officers stepped forward, "Let's move! We need to help if we can!"

* * *

Dagger landed the gunship a few meters away from the crashed ARC-170. Dagger and Swoop left the cockpit and grabbed weapons. Aay'han asked the others, "General, Professor, please wait inside. We'll check it out."

Dagger activated the gunships medical droid, IM-6. The small stout droid had small legs with repulsorlifts to help move around. The feminine programmed droid responded after activation, "Ready to heal."

Dagger then told the medical droid, "We have two troopers down. We don't know if they are still alive or not. The only other on the scene is an astromech droid."

The four lens face of the droid responded, "I will check immediately." Without hesitation, the droid hovered over to the crashed fighter without the other clones. Soon all clone troopers were surrounding the ARC as the droid began to examine the two clones. IM-6 opened the cockpit to the tail gunner first and started to scan Wreck. After a few seconds IM-6 moved on to Six in the pilot seat. She examined him too and just as quickly.

Aay'han asked, "What's the matter? Help them!"

IM-6 calmly responded, "I cannot. Both troopers are deceased. The most probable cause would be due to massive trauma. But without a proper autopsy I cannot concluded for certain."

R4-C3 popped out of the slot in the ARC fighter. She expressed her sorrow for not being able to help the others to Dagger. Dagger rubbed the dome head of the astromech droid, "Don't blame yourself girl, if anyone should be at fault it should be me. I didn't need to pull in the ball turrets, I just wanted to bring my ARC-170 with us. Or I could have at least let Six pilot the gunship."

Aay'han placed his hand on Dagger's shoulder, "You don't blame yourself either. No one could have foreseen what just happened. We aren't leaving them here though. Let's get them out, salvage what we can from the ship and destroy the rest."

Dagger nodded, "Swoop, help me get them out of there." Dagger and Swoop dragged the bodies of Wreck and Six into the gunship with Garek and Silis. IM-6 also reentered the gunship, folding back up into the storage hole she was in earlier.

As C3 was about to start salvaging the wrecked ship, everyone heard something. Aay'han investigated and found a group of seven aliens climbing towards them. "Defensive formation, we've got company!" C3 scurried into the gunship to hide while the surviving clones made a barrier around the gunship's open door.

The first creature to appear was reptilian in origin but many of its features resembled a more aviary ancestry. The being was in full combat armor minus a helmet and carried a strange looking rifle. The face had mandibles on the sides of its mouth and razor sharp teeth. Another being of the same species appeared before a blue humanoid female climbed up. She looked like a Twi'lek with short tendrils on her head instead of a pair of head-tails. What was unexpected was the humanoid that climbed up after the blue female. The man looked like an average human but was wearing the same uniform as the others. Two more humans and another strange creature appeared. The last one was the strangest of all. It had a head shaped like an Arcona with just as large eyes but the ends of the head pointed up instead of to the sides. The newest being's design looked fragile compared to the others, and the eye lids blinked from the bottom up.

From the shadows within the gunship, Garek asked the professor, "Are any of these new beings the creator of the Sigma Device?"

Silis looked at each of the new species carefully, "No. Well generally speaking the blue female and the human-looking beings could be related to the builders. It is just a speculation, given that all I have in comparison are skeletal remains. But if all of the skulls had a pair of holes in them I might have even suggested Twi'leks might be related. Again I'm off topic, sorry. I don't believe the species that created the Sigma Devices are alive, but that's just a speculation based on seeing the condition of this world, assuming it is a research world as I believe it to be."

* * *

Arriving at the crash site they saw the gunship was next to the crashed fighter. They couldn't see anyone in the fighter but they did see five armored men with strange black weapons. Four of the five men had green painted on their white armor, only one had basic white, and all had mud crusted boots. All five armors had scars and blast burns from battles. Their helmets had T shaped visors like that of the strange group that started gallivanting around the galaxy two years ago. Their weapons also looked similar to the weapons the four men of Sigma Squad use.

The turian captain wasn't helping the situation as he said, "It looks like we weren't need. Now please leave or we will have to place you under our custody until we can transfer you to the Citadel." The five men simply stood their ground with their weapons aimed at them. The turian then radioed to the others, "Send word to the Citadel about this. I think we're going to need back up."

* * *

News of these newcomers spread quickly throughout the Citadel. From the low lives hiding in the Wards to the politicians in the Presidium, everyone had heard about these strangers. The few images sent over have only been seen by members of C-Sec and the Citadel Council. As soon as the images were seen by the Council they figured Sigma Squad might have an idea as to who or what they were. Councilor Anderson sent them a message on a secured network. The message only had the image and the coordinates to Ilos.

* * *

Rang hasn't shown the others what was on the message, he just insisted they needed to get to Ilos quickly. Beviin was still questioning him, "Rang, what's so damn important we need to get to Ilos?"

"Bev, just trust me. We need to get to Ilos twenty minutes ago. You'll understand when you see."

Tare reported, "We are connected to the Omega Relay. Establishing connection to the Hawking Eta Relay."

Kix continued as the Tervho made the approach to the Mass Relay, "Relay's hot. Hitting it in three…two…one…" The Tervho was enveloped by eezo and launched to the next system.

* * *

During the stare off, Professor Pyth was passing the time by gauging the various new species they have encountered. "The first two are prime specimens of the reptilian-aviary link. If only they had some feathers around the head or a beak. From the structure of the head, it would seem they are a predatory species but I have yet to determine the possible use of the mandibles other than an evolutionary replacement for cheeks and to help bring the meat from their prey into their mouth. I have yet to determine anything of the blue female other than a possible sapient ancestry. The only problem with that theory is the lack of any visible hair and the tendrils on her head. The humanoids look very much like the average human. Various skin tones, hair and eye colors as well as skeletally speaking. The Arcona-like specimen seems amphibious in nature. The large eyes suggest they are a prey species looking for danger hiding in murky water. The being hasn't needed water since this stare down began, oh…twenty minutes ago. They may have developed tougher skin or scales to keep moisture in their body but they must need the water something. Reproductive purposes perhaps. What do you think about all of this, Jedi?"

Garek was more focused on the disturbance in the Force. Though the echoes are from long ago, Garek still felt the severe wounds in the Force of trillions of lifeforms suddenly hushed. Most of the wounds have healed but the most recent of these large wounds can still be felt on the new planet they were on.

* * *

Neither side was willing to lay down their arms but they didn't want to be the first to draw blood either. As tension started to build, the lieutenant contacted the turian captain. "Captain, we have a frigate that just touched down at camp."

The captain asked, "Why did you let them though?"

The lieutenant explained, "Because they claim to have a Spectre on board sir." The captain didn't like the situation; first these strange humanoids, now a Spectre suddenly appeared. "Sir, he's asking us to stand down…"

The lieutenant was cut off. Then an unknown voice started to speak, "This is Tral Krixz of the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance. I am ordering all personal to stand down. I have specialist that will resolve this matter immediately."

The captain kept an eye on the five men while questioning this person, "How do I know you're really a Spectre?"

"Do you really want to test me, captain?"

The captain didn't respond for a few moments as he thought it over. He finally decided to call his men back. The five men were still on high alert, believing they were regrouping for an assault. Instead, a lone turian in full armor appeared. The visor was in a T-shape and tinted black, with blue and white on his armor. He had no weapons and appeared to be alone. Kix quietly radioed back to the others, "OK, so besides lying that I'm a Spectre and unarmed in front of five heavily armed guys, what now?"

Rang then told him, "Hey turians are the number one species to occupy that position. Plus there's no comm. buoy for them to try and verify. As an added bonus we have Forta and Ras jamming all access to the extranet. For those guys though, try speaking to them in Mandalorian, if that doesn't work we'll head over immediately."

Kix took a deep breath and mumbled to himself, "Now I'm starting to hate being a turian." Kix then snapped his neck before he started to speak to the five men, "_Sha'kajir. Ni burc'ya be ramikad traat'aliit_."

The man with extra armor around his neck and the larger weapon then asked, "Sigma Squad…_val cuy'ga_?"

"_'Lek. Val ner alore_."

The man wanted to be certain, "_Tion val gai_?"

Kix only knew their nicknames but Rang was feeding him the information. "Araniik, ad'eta cuir tad'eta ehn. Beviin, ad'eta cuir tad'eta t'ad. Rang, ad'eta cuir cur'eta rayshe'a. Prudii, ad'eta cuir ehn'eta ehn."

After hearing that, the five men stood down lowering their arms. The five men continued their conversation between themselves via helmet communication. The lead man then said, "_Hiibir mhi at_ Sigma Squad."

Rang shouted openly, "We'll do one better." The four heavily armored men climbed up from the ledge unarmed like Kix, minus the knuckle blades integrated into their armor and the knife strapped to Beviin's leg. With the four of them on top Rang asked them, "You obviously know us, so we must have done something special to be remembered. So the only mystery is who you guys are?"

"Two years can change a lot, can't it?" Three of the five men salute, "I'm glad I was right about you guys. CC-05/371 reporting."

"CT-02/327 ready to fly."

"CT-04/381 waiting for orders."

Aran was the first to acknowledge them, "Dag, Dagger, Swoop…I never thought we'd ever see you guys again."

Rang then joked, "No wonder we didn't recognize you guys, the new armor doesn't help us. I see you got yourself a pauldron around your neck and a periscope rangerfinder on the side of your helmet. Looks like someone became important after we left."

"Actually I got a promotion. I'm a commander now and I changed my name. I'm Aay'han now."

Beviin and Prudii noticed something amiss. Bev was the first to ask, "Where's Vector and Rev?"

"Who are those two?"

Dagger answered, "About four weeks after you guys…disappeared…we lost them from heavy flak. I tried my best, but I had a gunship full of injured troopers to pull out."

Swoop tried to comfort his partner, "We did everything we could, Dagger. Without Rev and Vector we couldn't have saved all of those troopers."

Dagger then moved aside, "I think a few introductions are necessary, Sigma Squad I'd like you guys to meet CT-07/631 or Jak and CT-872 but you can call him Rook or Rookie."

Aran looked them over, "And I'm assuming white here is Rook."

"They call me that because when our unit got our colors I opted out to keep my armor white. I've been fighting since Geonosis, so don't think I don't know a thing or two."

Jak then saluted, "Sir, I've heard nothing but the best about you four. The Republic thinks you're all dead but…"

Rang slapped the trooper on the back, "I hope there were a few stories about me. Well we can talk about all that back on our ship."

Prudii interrupted the thought, "Not yet. Still more hiding in the larty. Who are they, advisor?"

Aay'han shook his head, "I figured you'd be the one to see them." He turned back towards the gunship, "Sir. Professor. I think it's safe to come out now."

Out of the shadows of the gunship, a cloaked figure walked out first followed by a Draethos wearing goggles and a rebreather mask. As they joined them, the Draethos couldn't help but move to take a closer look at Kix, "Interesting…talons were probably once used for hunting, territorial battles, mating rights, protecting others or other male testosterone driven events. Odd, what is the larger collar around the head for and the large spurs-like appendage below the knees?" The professor then realized what she was doing, "Oh, forgive my impertinence, Professor Silis Pyth, sentientologist and xenolinguist expert. And I'm sure you four are familiar with…"

"General Garek…I mean Jedi…I mean, oy I'm going to get hit." Rang was bracing for a slap by someone.

Instead, Garek said, "I've become more lenient about clones calling me 'General'." Garek then asked them, "We did not come here because we wanted to. Order 66 had been issued. What will you do now, Sigma Squad?"

Aay'han wanted to avoid this for some time, "Sir, wait…"

"No. This needs to be dealt with here and now." Garek removed the hood over the Mandalorian helmet he wore as he asked, "So, do we continue this game or not?"

Rang was opposed to the thought, "Boss man, the Jedi have done nothing but lay their lives down to defend the Republic. Hell, ours has stuck his neck out just so we could rescue distressed troopers."

Beviin was trying to be logical, "If we ever want to return to the Republic, we'd have to execute the order eventually."

Prudii then said, "Why follow? Not in the Republic. Jedi have led us against Separatists. Jedi have died alongside our brothers."

Aran was silent for a long time, even after the others stated their views. Aran finally raised his head and stood at attention, "Order 66 has been called down. That requires all soldiers of the Grand Army of the Republic to remove the Jedi from their position with force." Garek was about to activate his lightsaber when he stopped himself, "But, those orders only apply in the Republic and to live troopers. We've been classified as KIA for the past two years. Isn't that right, Aay'han?"

Aay'han rubbed the back of his helmet, "Your right as always, Aran. I tried to have you guys classified as MIA but Command overruled me."

Garek then collapsed onto his knee. The others tried to help him but he stopped them, "No." Garek was breathing heavily as though he was in pain, "I just need to get away from this planet."

Dagger wasn't willing to leave anything behind, "Before we leave, I'd like to try and salvage as much of the ARC-170 as we can."

Aran confirmed, "We aren't leaving anything behind. We made a few enemies these past two years and any of our technology could be harmful here. Kix, go tell the security we'll be taking our friends, the ships and any salvage that's part of the crashed ship."

Kix just shrugged, "Alright, I'll have to get that tough attitude back out again. Mouthing off that admiral was easier than this." Kix then slid back down towards the C-Sec camp.

* * *

**A/N: **Come on, of course the Citadel is going to send a few to guard the Conduit on Illos and keep it from being used by any Terminus faction. I'll dive deeper into Garek and the others soon. No, none of this was not neccecary, everything has a purpose and a place, of which you'll learn in due time...

**Mando'a Translation: **Like last time I'm going to just straight up translate what is ment for the sentences.

Sha'kajir. Ni burc'ya be ramikad traat'aliit.(SHAH-ka-JEER. Nee BOOR-sha beh RAH-mee-KAHD TRAHT-ah-LEET)- Cease-fire. I'm a friend of a commando squad.

Sigma Squad…val cuy'ga?-(vahl COO-ee-ga) Sigma Squad…they're still alive?

Lek. Val ner alore.(L-eck. vahl nair ah-LOR-ay)- Yeah. They're my bosses.

Tion val gai?(Tee-ON vahl- GUY)- What're their names?

Araniik, ad'eta cuir tad'eta ehn. Beviin, ad'eta cuir tad'eta t'ad. Rang, ad'eta cuir cur'eta rayshe'a. Prudii, ad'eta cuir ehn'eta ehn.(ah-RAHN-eek, ahd-AY-tah KOO-eer TAHD-ay-tah ayhn. BEH-veen, ahd-AY-tah KOO-eer TAHD-ay-tah tahd. rahng, ahd-AY-tah KOO-eer COOR-ay-tah ray-SHEE-ah. proo-DEE, ahd-AY-tah KOO-eer AYN-ay-tah ayhn)- Araniik, 2473. Beviin, 2472. Rang, 2445. Prudii, 2433.

Hiibir mhi at 'Sigma Squad'.(HEE-beer mee aht)- Take us to Sigma Squad.


	25. The New Players

**A/N: **Hello, yet another part for this story. If anyone wants to think of it as a late Valentine I'm not stopping ya, but I'm not doing it for anyone in particular.

* * *

Kix had lied to the C-Sec agents and, even with contentment to the situation, did nothing about it. It took them some time to find and gather the remains of the wing but with everything gathered, they left to the Tervho. Aay'han had explained what all of the events that led up to that point including the sacrifice made by Wreck and his squad. Inside the main hangar the gunship flew pulling the remains of the ARC-170 fighter. Aran had all of them go through decontamination. "Sorry about this. Some of our crew needs us to do this for their health."

Pyth then asked curiously, "So I should keep the rebreather on then when I interact with your crew?"

Rang joined in, "Actually it might be better if you guys did take off your masks and helmets. Kill the old, and potentially harmful, diseases and breathe in the new germs." Pyth soon removed her goggles and rebreather while the other clones removed their helmets. Garek depressurized his helmet and lifted it for a few seconds before bringing it back down. Rang then joked, "What's the matter, Jedi? No one's going to judge you and only the ten of us would know what the hell you really are."

Garek simply turned away, "I'll wait until the time is necessary."

As soon as Kix removed his helmet, Pyth moved over to have a closer examination of his mandibles. "…So the mandibles also possess fang-like structures at the bottom near the mouth. This would suggest a possible usage as a secondary jaw system or simply to help close the mouth. It is probably used to also keep things within the mouth. Judging by the ball joint it's connected to, it could also be used to express various emotions like how mammalian species use their facial muscles, more specifically humans and their eyebrows or checks." As Pyth continued to examine Kix she then noticed his scales, "Interesting…these scales seem metallic in nature."

Kix tried to get away from her as she was examining him, "Uh…excuse me."

Aay'han and the others could not understand the new alien languages as Sigma Squad had yet to give them any type of translator. "Sorry if you're feeling uncomfortable fella. From what I can tell, the professor's going to be like that for a while."

Beviin denoted, "She's probably going to work most of that off on our ship."

After decontamination, the ship's medical team was waiting if needed. Unfortunately they simply got Professor Pyth more excited, "Oh my. Judging from the much smaller mandible, less prominent collar feature and shorter…head fringe, I believe are the best words to describe them, rather supportive hip structure to carry a child or small clutch of eggs, probably the latter. Ah, one of the amphibians. Skin is smooth to the touch but not moist. Tougher then I was expecting. Are these horns or antennae?" She grabbed one of them, "Just horns."

Aran asked, "Palva, we need a few translators here." Palva nodded and ordered a few of the other around as they brought out seven handheld PDAs.

Rang then joked, "For now these are your 'translate everything machines'. I'm sure Bev can find a way to integrate the program into your suits or something soon enough."

Dagger then asked, "Does this thing translate like a protocol droid?"

Palva then said, "I don't know what this 'protocol droid' is but they're anything like the two balls Prudii has then keep them away."

Just like when Sigma Squad first acquired theirs, the others were impressed by the real-time translation the device did. Pyth was a bit disappointed, "So then there is no need for linguist or actual translators then. Ashame."

Aran still remembered what Garek said earlier, "We can do the proper introductions later. Bev, Kix let leave this system."

Rang, Prudii and the medics moved on as Aran, Kix and Bev lead the other to the CIC and the cockpit. When the elevator door opened to the bridge Dagger whistled, "And I thought the outside was impressive."

Kix then smiled, "You boys haven't seen anything yet."

Pyth tried to resist studying the various new species she was seeing. Aran began working controls around the CIC as Bev and Kix continued to the cockpit. Beviin looked towards them, "I'm sure you guys are interested in seeing a Mass Relay in proper use."

Pyth could not contain herself anymore, "To witness a functioning mass accelerator in action! This is truly a wondrous place."

After preparations were complete, the Tervho left the planet and headed towards the Mu Relay. Kix made the connecting, "Mu Relay is active and we have made contact."

Rasen reported from engineering, "All systems green and ready."

"Navigation set to the Hawking Eta system."

Bev input the mass, "Relay is hot. Hitting it in three…two…one…mark." Pyth and the other watched as the Tervho lined up with the Mass Relay, which was several times larger than the Sigma Device, as they did and was also enveloped by the strange element before finally being propelled rapidly to the next star system. The trip felt like it took no more than a few seconds, even going so far as to checking clocks to confirm it.

Swoop was in awe, "That was faster than hyperspace."

Bev disagreed about that, "But not as far. If we want to travel across the galaxy we'd have to use at least a dozen Mass Relays. It does however make key strategic points easier to defend or capture."

Aran was behind them, "So Garek, is this better sir?"

Garek turned to the commando, "Yes. I can still feel the echoes but not as deafening as it was on the planet. I believe you wanted to introduce us to your crew."

Aran nodded, "We should be fine to do some introductions. We may still be in the Terminus Systems but the Hawking Eta doesn't get that much traffic." Aran motioned for them to follow. The first stop was the CIC, "These guys are vital to navigating through this mess of a galaxy. In particular I'd like to introduce Tare'Nara vas Kira."

Silis, again, started to look closely at the new alien, "My my, what a beautifully designed suit. Hand-stitched cloth and the suit is composed of what appears to be scraps and recycled ship components. Visor conceals the individual's face with the only recognizable features being the silver-glowing eyes and nose." Silis started to circle around Tare, "No gas valve or tanks of any kind. That would mean that your immune system is fairly weak or quite possibly a pressure differential."

Tare was not sure if he should take all of that as a complement or an insult, "Uh…excuse me?"

Silis finally snapped out of one of her thoughts, "Again, I must apologize. Professor Silis Pyth, xenobiologist and linguists. Oh, another of the analogous Twi'leks…"

As Pyth ran off, Aay'han asked, "Shouldn't someone stop her?"

Araniik answered, "You said she was going to be like this. She'll make her own introductions. I'll give you guys more info about this galaxy and the space-faring species that inhabit it. Let's move on to the living quarters."

* * *

After a few hours of introductions, Sigma Squad was explaining the general situation they were in and the state of the galaxy to Aay'han and the others. "…and that's it in a nutshell advisor, I mean commander."

Aay'han shook his head, "I can't keep that rank. I'm a traitor now, I don't deserve it. You four are the only one who can keep your ranks. This life as mercs though sounds fun."

Rang then added, "But first we need to fix your problem. The Kaminoans are good but they did forget about stopping the accelerated aging process in us clones."

Dagger was skeptical about it, "How can you do that? They were rather secretive about it."

Bev explained, "Two years ago we hired one of this galaxy's leading genetics corporations. We lied about what it was but they did find a way to fix it. After Rang fiddles with the original data, he can help you guys."

Garek interrupted the clones, "As I'm sure this will be rather beneficial for you all but what about returning back to our galaxy?"

Beviin activated his omni-tool and displayed a hologram of a Mass Relay, "From what you have told us, it doesn't sound like there is a way back home."

Swoop asked, "Then how did these Protheans find a way to our galaxy then?"

Aran said, "We'll probably never know. The Protheans were lost 50,000 years ago, only relics and ruins are left and most of that is barely functioning. The language has been last so…"

Pyth happened to be walking by when she heard that particular part of the conversation, "Just means a bigger challenge for me. Working to decipher a dead language, how exciting." Just as suddenly as she appeared, Silis left.

Dagger then turned to a sour conversation, "What about Six and Wreck?"

Prudii finally spoke, "We'll give a proper funeral. For them and the others."

Rang tried to change subjects to something that might cheer the mood, "Say Aay'han, you heard anything from _buir_?"

"Yeah, she's still ringing head back on Kamino. Vhonte turned to a bit of a Vau after the news about what happen to you guys. You remember what we use to say back on Kamino…"

All of the clones then said, "If it's sunny today, an even bigger storm tomorrow."

Aran then started to order Sigma Squad, "Bev, I want you to fit our brothers, Garek and Professor Pyth with shields, they're going to need 'em. Also try to see if you can find a new source of ammo, I'd like to be able to use our DCs like they were meant to be used. Use the astromech if you have to. Rang, try to help fix the aging problem. Prudii you're in charge of the funeral."

As the others left, Garek spoke with Aran alone, "You've done quite well for yourself Mandalore."

Aran disagreed yet again, "I'm not Mandalore."

Garek looked as the others did what they were told, "You are Mandalore of this galaxy. The way all of your crew follow you, you are their leader. You are Mandalore."

"Mandalore leads entire armies of soldiers; I only lead about thirty people sir. I don't deserve that honor. I'm just trying to keep them all alive."

Garek bowed then turned to walk away. As he left, Garek told Araniik, "That is what I always did during the war…for you and all of your brothers."

* * *

After several hours, most of what Aran asked was completed, Aay'han and the others were outfitted with shields and Rang found the genetic markers involved with the age acceleration and returned them to normal. Some of the crew joined Sigma Squad and the others to the funeral of Wreck and Six. After the proceeding Rang found some interesting news, "Hey boss man, someone finally sank the Purgatory. Reports say it was a prison riot."

Aran could only laugh at the notion because of its high security, "Sound's like Shepard's handy work. I wonder who he recruited."

Rang could only guess, "With our luck it was probably somebody we put behind bars that was transferred to that hell hole."

* * *

On the SR-2 Normandy, after having Jack briefed, Shepard went to speak with Mordin to see his view on Sigma Squad, or at least those he worked with, "Shepard. How can I help?"

"Have you got a minute to talk?"

Mordin finally looked up from the monitor, "Yes, just waiting for next test sample to cultivate and response from prior group."

"Do you know anything about Sigma Squad or the Mandalorians?"

Mordin started to walk around, "Yes, odd yet interesting group. Take jobs and always complete. Never fail. But have been known to turn on contractor. Usually slavers or others of the like. Work for Aria often but some information doesn't add up."

Shepard asked, "What do you mean, something doesn't add up?"

Mordin tried to explain, "A few STG and Spectres that required aid were helped by Sigma Squad and Mandalorians. No true explanation as to how they found out. All communication on encoded channels. Only Citadel Council or Salarian Union should have known about them. Have saved a few friends of mine."

Shepard confirmed, "Aran semi-confirmed with me that he was a Spectre."

Mordin placed his hand against his chin, "Interesting. Mandalorians lied then. Couldn't tell with helmets on. No facial cues to read off of."

Shepard asked, "What do you think about them?"

Mordin was quick as usual, "Noble. The medic vowed to help find my assistant. Asari more truthful about her feelings. Quarians seem rather adopted to new life with Mandalorians."

Shepard was curious, "How could you tell with quarians?"

Mordin told him, "Due to weakened immune systems, quarians had to learn of new ways to convey emotions through verbal communication, body languages or other more visible signs because of envirosuits. Both quarians were probably unconsciously expressed their feelings about current life situation."

Shepard nodded, "Thanks for telling me, Mordin."

Mordin returned to his console, "No problem at all. Now I can began another test on the biodrone collected from Freedom's Progress. This should be interesting."

* * *

Shepard moved on to the Main Battery Room to speak with his turian friend. Garrus heard the door open behind him when he turned to see Shepard. "Shepard. Need me for something?"

"Have you got a minute?"

Garrus just shrugged, "Sure, I'm just killing time anyway. What'd you want to talk about?"

Shepard got to the point, "You've been working with Sigma Squad right?"

"Yeah. Why do you ask?" Garrus wasn't sure where this was going.

Shepard lend against the railing, "Tell me about them. How have they been after I…died?"

Garrus looked to his right, "You remember when they declared themselves their own nation. Well after you were lost, they build up a new crew, and left Citadel space. They then started working for Aria and almost anyone who would pay them."

Shepard asked, "They sound like mercs."

Garrus explained, "Technically they are."

"Technically?"

"It's true they work for credits but they have turned against a few contractors. In particular slavers and mercs or anyone with a bad rep, which was most of them. They helped me out a lot during my merc time on Omega. They helped me and my team stay far away from anything Aria related and hit a few harder to reach targets for us. Each one of them is odd in their own way but they have good intentions and their all good at what they do. I've heard about their bad past with Cerberus but I don't know any details."

Shepard then asked his friend, "What kind of targets are we talking about?"

Garrus placed his hand on the side of his head, "This one time we were trying to stop an Eclipse deal on Omega but security around the area was tight. It was tighter because members of the Mandalorians were there for security. Hell two of them were acting as personal bodyguards for the Eclipse dealer."

Shepard was curious, "What happened then?"

Garrus explained, "We tried to find a hole in their defenses, there were none. The Mandalorians gave us a warning to stay away unless we wanted to fight. They take their jobs seriously. After the deal was over, all of the Mandalorians gathered together and left. All of the players were still inside and soon after the Mandalorians were away, boom, the meeting place exploded. The Eclipse tried to find what caused it but they never found anything other than a few extra crispy limbs. Soon after I get a message from Aran telling me they were hired by a third party to take out some of the dealers and used the bodyguard job just to get on the site. When they take a job, they do it, one way or another."

Shepard had to clarify, "They do things like that all of the time?"

Garrus just shook his head, "No, sometimes their more direct about it. But they also do more charitable jobs."

Shepard looked towards the gun as he asked his friend, "So, do you think they'd be willing to work with us?"

Garrus looked around, "With the two of us, yes. With Cerberus, not so much. I owe them for a few things but Aran doesn't seem like the kind of guy to pull favors out without a reason or inconveniently anyway."

Shepard nodded after hearing it from his friend. He pushed off the railing and thanked the turian, "I'll keep all of that in mind the next time we meet. See you around Garrus."

As Shepard walked way, Garrus couldn't help but think, _I hope I don't have to resort to using this. _Garrus was looking at the small cylinder he received from Aran, telling him to use it as a way to contact them if he or Mordin wanted to leave.

* * *

As the Tervho continued to loiter in the Hawking Eta cluster, Prudii received a message from a young quarian. It was on Prudii's personal and encrypted comm. channel, "Prudii, this is Tali…I mean of course you know it's me."

Prudii move to a quite area to continue the conversation. "Tali, what's the matter? Require assistance?"

"I hope not but I've been getting a strange feeling like something terrible might happen. I don't know, I just think I'd feel better if you were here with me…I mean with us to help…"

Even with just this communication Prudii could tell Tali was nervous. "Is this the mission in geth space?"

"Yes." Tali paused for a few moments before she continued, "The quarian marines have been ordered to protect me and the data I'm supposed to gather, but I don't want people to die for me."

"I'll see what Araniik says, if we can join I'll contact you."

"Thanks Prudii, I'd really appreciate it if you could come."

Prudii soon found Araniik in Navigation as he was finishing telling Garek and Aay'han going into greater detail about galactic politics, "…but the Traverse-Terminus border aren't as heavily patrolled as they should be." Aran noticed his _vod_, "Prudii why are you here _vod_? Do you need something?"

To Aay'han and even Garek's amazement, Prudii seemed nervous. They assumed it had to be something rather important or dire for Prudii to be nervous. "It's Tali, _vod_…she wants assistance with her mission."

Aay'han was the first to ask, "Who?"

Aran explained, "She's the first quarian we met after traveling through the small Mass Relay. Rasen and Tare, they're both quarians, but Tare's male." Aran then turned back to Prudii, "So she wants us to help her after all. Did she say what the mission was?"

"No, nothing specific. Something about data." Prudii was direct as always and he regained his calm self again.

Aran turned to one of the crew, "Tare, have you heard anything about what Tali's mission is?"

The young quarian quickly responded, "No. It's probably a mission given to her by the Admiralty Board. Not many others can assign missions outside the Fleet, especial in geth space."

Aran nodded, "Thank you Tare." The masked quarian returned to his station and continued his work. "I don't know if we can spare the time for the entire crew to help," Prudii did not flinch after receiving the bad news but he saw Aran wasn't finished and waited, "But I don't see the harm in sending a few if we can rendezvous with them somewhere before they enter geth space."

As Prudii contacted Tali, Garek questioned this decision, "Is it wise to let some of you crew just go off like that?"

Aran answered confidently, "Prudii is probably the only one going. Maybe Rasen or Vren but other than them we still have enough man-power to continue if we take a job offer."

Prudii soon after reported, "Tali said to meet in the Nariph system, in the Pylos Nebula."

Aran nodded, "Bev, were setting a course to the Pylos Nebula. Get the ship prepped."

Beviin radioed, "Aye, aye, sir. ETA to Mass Relay: ten minutes."

* * *

**A/N: **I added the Shepard scenes to keep him in the story and to say I haven't forgotten Shepard is still important. More setting up for the next few chapters to come.

**Mando'a Translation: **Sorry, no Mando that hasn't been translated before.


	26. The enemy of my enemy…

**A/N: **Hi all, adding another piece to this story. Oh before I forget(for those that haven't figured it out or don't already know), 'larty' is a nickname the clone troppers gave the gunships. Because the name for this type is LAAT/i (or spelled out as Low Altitude Assault Transport/infantry). Back to the story...

* * *

After a pair of Relay jumps and a look at the galaxy map, the others started to see how inferior Mass Relay travel was compared to hyperspace, safer but more time consuming. Arriving to the Pylos Nebula, a small quarian scout ship was waiting by the Mass Relay. Beviin called out to the ship, "Quarian vessel, this is the Tervho. Do you read?"

They were then contacted as a young woman's voice spoke, "Beviin, it's good to hear your voice again. We're ready."

Beviin answered, "Nice to see you again Miss Zorah. Extending the docking arm now. Ready to transfer people over whenever you are." The small quarian scout vessel aligned itself with the Tervho and attached to the Tervho's dock arm.

* * *

Inside the quarian ship, the marine squad leader, Kal'Reegar, was with Tali and a group of quarian marines waiting for the extra support. Reegar was talking with Tali about the added fire power, "Are you sure we need them ma'am? Hired guns aren't always known for their loyalty or dedication to the job."

Tali had only told them they were going to receive additional help but she didn't say from whom. "Then you've never met these mercenaries." Before she could continue, the airlock depressurized.

As the air hissed some of the marines were unsure what to expect. The door opened with six figures present, two of which were quarians. The male quarian that came through the doors threw out his right arm, "Kal'Reegar! It's good to see you again my friend."

Reegar took a few moments to remember before he recognized the voice. "Tare'Nara? I heard you joined the guys that helped save the Ideena. I wasn't expecting you were our reinforcements."

"Actually I'm not, Kal. Rasen and I are only here to see if we knew any of the marines."

Before Tare and Kal could reminisce about the past, Araniik spoke, "I'm sorry that all of us couldn't join you in helping with this operation Tali, but we do have a volunteer going with all of you."

Aran stepped aside as Prudii stepped forward. The black armored man saluted, "Ready."

Kal'Reegar had heard the story about Sigma Squad and what they did for the Ideena, as had every quarian in the Flotilla. "You're the one called Prudii vas Tervho, right?"

Prudii put his arm back down to his side and answered, "Sir."

Reegar continued to question him, "Do you know the mission?"

"Protect Tali'Zorah. Protect the data."

"Know anything else?"

"Negative. Not paid to know."

Kal turned to look to Tali, "Will he really be of assistance ma'am?"

Tali nodded to the marine, "He will be Kal."

Reegar then subsided, "If you say so ma'am. Welcome aboard Prudii."

Rang then started to tease Prudii yet again, "_Jii partaylir, jate ad vaal gar ti te quarians. Nu digur Rule ta'raysh e'tad ru geth bal ni kar'taylir gar copaanir nuhoy ti_…" Rang heard the clicks from Prudii's vibroblades and started to back away, "Alright, alright…shutting up."

Rasen couldn't help but laugh after watching, "Well it was your fault for going that far Rang." Rasen had figured Prudii had some feelings towards Tali after he randomly asked her to help salvage geth parts for whatever.

After the two stopped bickering Aran said, "Alright _vod_, when the mission is complete contact us and we'll arrange a rendezvous." Prudii simply nodded as he walked further into the quarian vessel.

Tare turned back to Kal as he said, "I'm sorry about Prazza, Kal. He and his people were good marines."

Reegar nodded, "Prazza was always headstrong…and a stubborn one. I've told him to listen to Tali. See you around galaxy Tare." With that the others returned to their ship.

The other quarian marines were visibly intimidated by Prudii, both by his demeanor and the weapons he carried. The only quarian that was truly comfortable around the heavily armored Mandalorian was Tali as she guided him through the ship, "I'm really glad you're here Prudii."

Prudii was looking around at the other quarians when he noted, "Too many greenhorns, Tali. I can see it in their eyes."

Prudii wasn't being subtle when he said that. Kal'Reegar then started to argue, "Excuse me, but who are you to say that? All of us have gone through several missions…"

"Not enough." Prudii was now helmet to helmet with the red armored quarian, "Fight on an enemy controlled planet and survive with only your squad of four against human-sized bugs trying to tear you apart, armies of battle droids programmed to kill you and any other indigenous lifeforms that wants to eat you. Fight a whole day like that, then we can talk."

Tali stepped in before anything could occur, "That's enough! We're all on the same side here."

It was a tense few seconds but Prudii was the first to step down saying, "Good man. We'll see how good in a fight."

* * *

After leaving the Pylos Nebula, Professor Silis Pyth was in the medical bay learning as much about this galaxy's species and the many new languages. As she continued her studies, she couldn't help but overhear Rang as he wrestled with a project. "Hold still…hold still you little…damn it, you almost got me. But almost doesn't get you anything."

Pyth moved over to see what Rang was fighting with inside the glovebox. "A very odd looking insect indeed, if I do say so myself."

Rang quickly pulled his arms out of the gloves. "You almost scared me professor, if I wasn't already nervous because of this little bugger."

Rang was only peaking Pyth's interest, "Why? Is it poisonous or is there something special about this particular species or specimen?"

Rang pointed to the other side of the room, towards a table with piles of paper and a few datapads scattered about, "All the data I've been able to learn from this little guy is over there. Sorry about the mess."

Pyth was no stranger to such clutter, having created plenty of piles worst then the small stack before her. In minutes she was sifting through the papers and datapads. She read quickly through the data, "Oh…I see. So it's a bioengineered drone, created to find and disable preprogrammed targets. Not many have the creativity to conceive of such a marvelous little creation. It could potentially locate, disable and retrieve rare or very elusive zoological specimens for study."

Rang had doubts, "Yeah well I think the ones who created it planned on 'harvesting' a lot more than a few samples." Silis had returned to Rang's side, "The creeps who made this also added a nasty little bite to her; after it stings, not only is one paralyzed by a potent neurotoxins but it also creates a type of stasis field around the victim, prolonging the paralysis for hours."

Pyth was curious, "How did you learn that? Did you put a test subject in with the specimen? I doubt a stasis field would appear in test with the toxin…"

Rang started rubbing his left forearm, "Nah, the little sucker punctured the glove and got to me a few days back. It's one determined little snot, even cracked the case a few times." After reliving the moment Rang looked to Pyth, "I'm sorry; I'm not use to working with your species. The buckteeth are hard for me not to see and question how you eat, even talk, you know?"

"Yes, it's understandable. My people are very reclusive. Few outside of the scientific or historical fields ever interact with my kind, and even that is a fraction of our true people, as well as culture. But back to the topic of the small insect, have you found a way to counter the neurotoxin and stasis field?"

Rang walked over to the table and grabbed a datapad, "Half way. I'm a medic, poisons, broken bones, cuts, most wounds I can find a way to fix…usually. I'm still not sure how to deal with the stasis field effect." Rang handed her the datapad to examine.

Silis examined the data for about a minute or two before she finally turned to Rang, "I see part of the problem." She could see Rang was curious as she continued, "You're tackling the entire situation as a biologist when you should also be looking from an engineer's stand point, for the stasis field part I mean. This creature is bioengineered, so I'm sure if you work with one of your crew's engineers you could think of a way of countering the stasis field. I have no idea what to do though so…"

Rang thought about it before finally turning to her with a smile, "Thanks doc. I'll see if Ras or someone wants to help me later."

* * *

Beviin was letting Kix pilot while he checked on Danger and the gunship crew in the hangar. Dagger heard the elevator doors open and looked to see his brother walk out. "Hey _vod_, good to see you here. I never got the chance to ask so, how have things been for you guy?"

The only parts of his armor Bev was wearing were his gloves and boots along with his black under suit. "Things could be better. We've tried to keep this ship up to Republic standards, but it's been hard without maintenance droids or hydrospanners. Overall performance could still be improved though."

Swoop just laughed, "Always worried about perfection, eh Beviin?"

Bev watched as Jak and Rook were taking parts from the ARC-170. Bev promptly asked, "You need help with anything?"

Dagger took off his helmet, "Well the ARC isn't going to be flying anytime soon without replacement parts, and from what you guys have said that doesn't seem likely. You guys also said this galaxy uses advanced slugthrowers, so I figured we take the shield from the ARC-170 and move it over into the gunship. I've always wanted shields on a larty anyway. Not sure what to do with the hyperdrive and we'd probably keep the rest of the ARC for spare parts for larty after we're finished."

Bev had a few ideas, "Hang on, I'm going to get some of our engineers down here." Not even five minutes pass and Bev returned with a team of six. Dagger also gathered his people, including R4-C3. "Engineers, we have a major project ahead of ourselves. We're going to see if we can integrate one galaxy's technology with another."

Rasen questioned, "What are you talking about Bev?"

Dagger stepped up, "If I'm reading Bev right, then he wants to try and implement the ARC-170's hyperdrive into this frigate."

Bev nodded, "We're going to create several simulations before we finally push though with the project but I think having the ability to use the hyperdrive will give us a great strategic advantage."

The little red and blue beeped and whistled. As the little droid continued, Dagger soon translated, "Bev, C3's worried about the impact on performance by putting a fighter-sized hyperdrive into a frigate. She's also worried about the gamma radiation needed to power the hyperdrive, the hull's integrity during hyperspace travel and lack of a navicomputer."

"And we're supposed to believe it, just like that?" Rasen was still not set with working with A.I.s even when she worked with Prudii's recon droids. Others onboard also had reserve feeling, but not as deep-seated as Rasen's.

Beviin tried to be the voice of reason, "Rasen, Aran and myself have placed our lived as well as our brothers in Dagger's hands. One mistake, one wrong turn, one good hit and we all could have died on some random planet. Now I know this galaxy has a…distrust towards synthetic lifeforms but astromech droids have been an integral part of our galaxy's history. If Dagger trusts this unit, I'm willing to believe in that trust."

Swoop added, "We've kept with Republic Regs, we wipe her memory after every mission."

Jak blur out, "Ha, and tweak it. Dagger only deleted mission related data, so technically C3 has never received a true memory wipe." C3 then buzz how 'technically' wasn't the same as actually. "Sorry…"

One of the salarians then questioned, "You keep calling it 'she' and 'her'. But synthetic life would not necessarily need gender."

Dagger explained, "Yeah, droids don't need gender like we do but it make conversations with or about them a hell of a lot easier for us, so their programmed to have genders."

Rook interrupted the little explanation, "C3's going to need data on the ship so she can…"

Rasen stopped him, "I won't let that **_thing _**have access to the ship's systems!"

Swoop tried to correct her, "No one said access. But C3 is the only one qualified to say if this ship could survive a jump in hyperspace."

* * *

While Rasen continued to resist working with R4-C3, the Jedi was also encountering a few difficulties. Garek was meditating in the mess hall and the crew that were there were curious. Curious as to how this one individual could attain the admiration and respect from the four commandos that brought them all together. The krogan duo were the only one in the group with the quad to see. "So, you're a Jedi? You don't look as tough as _they_ make you out to be."

"I'm sure one of us could take him down."

Without a word the Jedi stood up and started to walk away. "What's the matter? You're not willing to prove it?"

Garek finally stopped and turned to the krogans, "You want to back those words, we meet at the Battle Circle. I assume RC-2473 has established a Battle Circle, did he not?"

At the Battle Circle, the current referee was one of the turian navigational staff. Some of the crowd from before continued to watch from the side lines as Garek and the krogan were about to have their match. Besides the two basic rules, no leaving the Battle Circle during combat and no death blows, the krogan restricted the fight to unarmed combat only. In the Circle, Garek was taking his time as he neatly folded his cloak and placed his lightsaber on top. When ready, Garek entered a rather unusual pose, almost animalistic in nature as he was hunched over with a slight sway and his hands open as though baring his claws at the krogan.

With the two combatants in ready positions, the turian signal the match with a gong. The two combatants kept eye contact with one another as they circled the other. After a few circles the krogan was the first to make his move. The lumbering brute was rather light on his feet despite his hump and bulk. But even with the krogan's tremendous strength, Garek was holding his own, without the use of the Force. During the struggle, Garek commended the warrior, "You're strong krogan. I see the clones even gave you a few pointers. But I gave them a few of these pointers and I know many others." Without much effort, Garek continued to hold back the krogan as he moved around to his side. Garek then tripped the krogan to the mat and pinned him. Before the krogan could try to fight back, Garek had his hand ready to strike over the krogan's eye.

The turian rang the gong again, "Enough! The match between the Jedi and Jorgal is over. The Jedi is the clear and honorable victor." Garek moved his hand from the krogan's eye to his arm, offering to help him back up.

Nyona had watched the whole thing, "You're good, for whatever you are." She was trying to use her sex appeal as an asari to see if she can lower Garek's guard, "You wouldn't mind having a little tussle with me would you?" The Mandalorian helmet simply nodded to her and returned to the Battle Circle.

As Nyona entered the circle, the turian referee asked, "Nyona, what are terms?"

Nyona gave that twisted smirk she learned from Aria, "Unarmed, but we can use our Biotics, or whatever you call that power Aran and the others have said you possess."

The turian nodded, "Remember, no leaving the circle and no fatal strikes." As soon he saw that both combatants were ready he rang the gong.

Nyona didn't give Garek time to move as she fired off a powerful Biotic blast towards him. Instead of trying to avoid the blast, Garek stopped it with his hands. He struggled at first but soon he started compressing the Biotic between his hands until he crushed it in his palms. Nyona was shocked but she snapped herself out of the gaze before Garek was finished with crushing the Biotic attack. Nyona moved in to try and pin him while he was still busy but Garek blocked her attacks. During Nyona's assault, Garek was only defending, he wasn't trying to attack. Soon Nyona was caught off guard as Garek leaped back and stretched his arm out. As soon as his arm stretched Nyona felt a powerful energy pushing her until she could no longer fight it, flying to the edge of the circle. In a spectacular display, Garek quickly jumped from one end of the Battle Circle to the other, landing over Nyona with his arm ready to strike her throat.

The gong rang out again, "That's enough. The match between Nyona and the Jedi is over. Again, the Jedi is the clear and honorable victor."

Garek again offered to help his former opponent up but Nyona, being the prideful woman she was, batted the hand away. As Garek tied his cloak back on Vren walked up to him. "Nice match there. Few can beat a krogan in a fistfight, and even fewer can say they beat Nyona and her Biotics, especially how you did it. Just when I thought things couldn't get any more interesting, you guys show up." Vren had a bit of a smile on him excited to see what was to come.

Garek finished fixing his cloak and reattached his lightsaber to his belt, "Don't be so excited that it gets you kill, krogan. The Force has guided us all to this point and the Force can be a cruel one at times." With that he walked away from the crowd to find a more secluded place to meditate.

* * *

Araniik knew if Cerberus or the Illusive Man were going to try and contact them they would use the dummy account to relay information. Aran also went out of his way to buy a separate computer on an isolated network to protect the ship and his crew. Accessing the email, Aran found several expected junk mail but he found one very interesting one piece of 'junk'. It was from one T.I.M. with no return email address and it was titled 'COLLECTORS'.

The contents of the letter read, 'I know we've had our differences and our disputes, but a smart man like you should be willing to put aside petty differences for a more beneficial opportunity. Collectors might be planning to visit Horizon. If you really want to help I would suggest not interfering, for your own sake.'

Aran laughed in his mind, _Who the hell does he think he's talking to? Trying to use reverse psychology on us, he wants us to go. _Aran started to look around for more information about the colony on the extranet. Aran quickly found an interesting tidbit; Operations Chief Ashley Williams was 'officially' stationed on Horizon to establish a better relationship between the Alliance and her colonies. _A cover story if I've ever heard one._

* * *

**A/N: **Again, I'm setting myself up for a later chapter but I also figured that, from Haestrom's sun, Tali might have needed to pick up extra explosives or something(just a convenience plot point really). Anyway, some of you might want to dispute that Kal'Reegar wouldn't have fought so much with Prudii, but I think it makes the pair better. Prudii' gauge of the quarian(in my opinion) is a reletivly accurate one. The only real threats are pirates and such, Prudii's been through war.

Now the Collector seeker, don't tell me the seeker aren't genetically engineered. From what we do know about them they act more animalistic then most robotic drones. In particular I'm talking about the drone Mordin experiments with. I'm sure there is a control signal or something the Collectors us to command the seeker swarm but I digress...

About the Battle Circle; I didn't go over two rules; the first being that in order to challenge a champion or former champion of the Battle Circle, one must have the recommendation of one who was a champion at one point(confusing but thems the rules). Second is the only weapons allowed were those permitted by the combatant with the most honor. These guys don't know anything about Garek or Jedi in general so they don't hold much expectation about him other then what Sigma Squad has told them. The Battle Circle first appeared in KOTOR II(Knights of the Old Republic 2) but I added a gong because the combatants need a signal that will grab their attention, what's better then a loud ringing noise. The refs for the Battle Circle is a duty that everyone(other then the current Mandalore) gets to do at least once(after some training for it).

Last chapter(for those that remember), Shepard hit the Purgatory leaving only Grunt as the last main companion to pick up before the mission on Horizon. This chapter was used to give Shepard time to do a few things on the Citadel, including picking up Ms Kasumi Goto(but I usually pick her up before I go to Omega), and finding Okeer/Grunt. Now I know the Illusive Man wouldn't use the nickname we the community have so delightfully dubbed him with but I thought it would be funny to use since he was contacting Aran on a rather unsecured channel. Yes the Illusive Man doesn't want the Mandalorians interfering and yes he would love the opportunity of getting their tech but he's not willing to lose Shepard in the process.

Just a side note for those that read my Revan story, I'll probably have the next chapter posted by the weekend.

**Mando'a Translation: **Another 'translate the entire sentence' piece. If anyone thinks it's better where I let you guys try to learn Mando'a, then send me a PM or something.

Jii partaylir, jate ad vaal gar ti te 'quarians'. Nu digur 'Rule' ta'raysh e'tad ru 'geth' bal ni kar'taylir gar copaanir nuhoy ti…

(gee par-TAT-leer, JAH-tay ahd vahl gahr tee teh_. Noo dee-GOOR _ ta-RAYSH EH-tad roo _ bahl nee kar-TIE-leer gahr KOH-pan-EER noo-HOY tee)

Now remember, be a good boy while you're with the quarians. Don't forget Rule 17 around the geth and I know you want to sleep with…


	27. Everything on the Horizon

**A/N: **This site hates me. Not only do I have to deal with the ocassional space deletion within my stories but for the past 3 weeks I wasn't able to upload anything because of some 'Error Type 2'! If these stories didn't keep flowing from my mind I'd have half a mind to just delete them. OK, calm down, angry ranting over, let my readers read...

* * *

After having some time to think about the situation, Aran made a call to the med bay, "Rang, you there _vod_?"

"Yeah bro, what's up?"

"You ever figure out that seeker we found on Freedom's Progress?"

"Just about, and oddly enough it was all thank to Forta in the end. Now all that's left to do is adjust a few settings on the suits and apply…"

Aran disconnected him and contacted the hangar, "Dagger, we need the gunship ready for combat. How is the old girl?"

Dagger found the intercom and responded, "All systems are green. We were even added shields."

"Good." Aran made a ship wide announcement, "We're heading over to Horizon crew. I think the Illusive Man has played his cards so the Collectors will attack the colony specifically."

Bev questioned the intel's reliability, "Sir, how are we certain the Collectors will attack Horizon?"

"The Illusive Man wants us to stay away from there. Also, I recently learned Miss Ashley Williams is on the planet. It's mostly just a hunch but I think the Illusive Man doesn't want us interfering if or when the Collectors attack. What do you think gen…I mean, Garek?"

There was no response right away but soon the synthesized voice finally answered, "My opinion would mean little here. I do not know much about the gears that drive this galaxy or its major workers but what I do know is that many lives are in harm's way. My Jedi training demands that I help them, at the cost of my life if necessary. I don't know about you Mandalore, but I might be tempted to find a way to get there even if you don't."

Araniik still didn't want to be called Mandalore but he now knew what to do, "Mandalorians, prepare for hard contact! Ground teams prep for combat. Kix get us to Horizon ASAP!"

Kix couldn't help but note as he prepared, "I don't think the humans are going to say, 'Hey welcome to our colony. Feel free to land anywhere'. Besides, the shuttle doesn't have any defenses of her own."

"You already forgetting about us lizard face?"

Dagger continued, "Rook's right. This may be a new galaxy, but battlefield never changes much."

Kix then asked, "Then what about the rest of us, huh? If the Collectors are there then I'm sure they'll have a way of detecting us, so what then?"

Bev soon answered, "Don't worry about that. After that incident with the Eclipse slaving ring, I made a few mods to the ship's hull. The hull's able to absorb many types of sonar and radar but I had to sacrifice some of our speed and maneuverability. I still haven't figured out how to mask the thermals though."

* * *

The assault team this time consisted of Nyona, Rang, Beviin, Vren, Tare, Rasen, Forta, and Araniik. Aay'han and Garek planned to join on the ground as well. Everyone had gathered in the hangar as the gunship flight crew was securing the remains of the ARC-170. Rasen saw the astromech droid as it climbed into the gunship's bay, "What is that thing doing? It's not coming with us, is it?"

Bev was busy checking his gear but not too busy to answer, "The astromech is probably almost as good of a slicer as me. Maybe better. But if the Collectors are attacking, I'm probably going to be preoccupied with killing them to slice anything. It'd be too dangerous for you without proper cover. Astromechs are used like this all of the time back in our galaxy."

Forta could only see the intelligence about it, "Smart. Send the machine to do what one might consider a suicide job."

"Yeah, but until you need her, she stays nice and safe with us." Dagger had grown attached to the little droid after flying several missions with it and being saved by the droid a few times.

Garek grabbed one of the small DC-15S rifles, "Let us get underway. The attack has already begun as we speak."

Nyona, still upset about the fight earlier asked, "How do you know if they are being attacked?"

Rang happily said grabbing her shoulder, "It's a Jedi thing, Ny. If the General says he can feel or sense it, then it is as he says. Don't worry about it, Jedi are complicated."

Swoop then made the announcement, "All systems are ready Dagger. Jak and Rookie are sealed in their turrets."

Aran and Aay'han simultaneously said, "Mount up!"

* * *

The Tervho now entered the Iera system and was heading towards the third planet, Horizon. Kix skillfully entered geosynchronous orbit with the planet. "It's up to you fellas to deal with the Collectors. Hangar doors are opening. See ya when you get back." With the hangar opened, the LAAT launched entering the planet's atmosphere.

Inside the gunship, the cabin was lit red as the clones and Garek did their final checks on their weapons and gear. When they were finished Bev tossed his holo emitter onto the middle of the cabin. It soon displayed a blue detailed map of the colony. Aran soon started laying out the battle plan, "Councilor Anderson was gracious enough to supply us with a well detailed map of the colony."

Bev continued, "From the tactical analysis, all communication with the colony has ceased. The ideal location to start with collecting colonist would be the center of the colony. Rang's examination of the seeker would indicate that the Collectors could take as long as they want as long as the seekers continued to monitor the colonist and maintain the stasis."

Three colored dot appeared and followed individual paths to the center. Aran stepped up again, "We're going to split into three teams and push them back. Team one will consists of myself, Tare and Forta. Team two is going to have a little extra muscle, Nyona, Garek, Vren and Aay'han. And team three will have Beviin, Rang, and Rasen with Dagger providing air support. Team one will follow the yellow path from the east, team three takes the red path from the western part of the map, and team two is going straight down the middle."

Swoop was the first to spot it, "What the fierfek is that?"

Aay'han tapped his helmet, "What's the matter pilot? What are you seeing?"

Jak was checked his math in his mind, "A ship that looks like it was part of a Geo hive but…it's the size of a Subjugator-class heavy cruiser, like the Malevolence."

"Whoa whoa, whoa, hold it! You're telling me the Collectors use a ship the size of the Malevolence? No wonder one normally escaped the colony abductions."

Swoop interrupted, "No so fast Rang, sensors detect a shuttle craft leaving as we speak."

Aran asked, "Can you get an identifying marker or something?"

"Hang on Aran…we can't see much. A small strange looking shuttle, mostly white. It does have some black and orange markings on it as well. Almost looks like a bug if you look at it just right."

Rasen noted, "It sounds like a UT-47."

Vren sneered, "It sounds like Cerberus."

Aay'han stepped in before Aran could ask the pilots, "Where's the shuttle taking off from?"

Swoop used the LAAT's computers and the map Bev was using earlier, "It's taken off right at team two's drop zone."

Aran heavily sighed before barking out orders. "If they want that route, they can have it. Garek, Nyona, you two are now part of team one. Team three gets Vren and Aay'han, but the larty is still going to provide team three with support. Let's move Mandalorians, we've got a colony to save!"

At drop point one, Dagger positioned the gunship less than a meter above the ground before opening the bay doors and yelling, "Welcome to paradise!" Team one then quickly rushed out and the LAAT took off to the next drop zone.

* * *

With the UT-47 shuttle returning to the Normandy, Shepard brought a bigger squad to deal with the Collector threat. Shepard brought Garrus being the only squadmate he currently trusted with his life, Mordin for his medical expertise and understanding of the seekers, Kasumi Goto for her stealth capability and Grunt's sheer power. Shepard wanted as little Cerberus interference as possible.

Shepard turned to Professor Solus asking, "Mordin, you sure those armor upgrades will protect us from the seeker swarms?"

Mordin quickly responded honestly, "Certainty impossible. But in limited numbers, should confuse detection, make us invisible to swarms. In theory."

Garrus could only question Mordin's confidence, "In theory? That sounds promising."

Mordin rebutted the scared turian, "Experimental technology. Only test is contact with seeker swarms. Have to test them in person. Should be exciting."

"Does anyone else get the feeling that things are going to get worse?" Kasumi asked the group pessimistically.

Before they left the LZ, they spotted something unusual in the skies of Horizon. It looked like some type of gunship but no one has seen such a design. Grunt looked at it from an odd point of view, "At least we can kill something other than Collectors now."

Garrus was looking through his sniper rifle to get a better look. "Doesn't look like anything I've seen before. Wait." Garrus zoomed in on the ball on the side. "Hello."

Shepard asked his turian friend, "What is it Garrus?"

"There's a man inside a clear ball. He looks a lot like one of the Mandalorians. In particular one of the Sigma Squad guys, but a bit different."

Grunt couldn't care less, "Scavengers or those working for the Collectors. All it means is that we have more things to kill."

Shepard disagreed, "From what the Illusive Man and Miranda have told me, scavengers don't show up until long after the colony is lost."

Garrus was about to try and support the young krogan's thought before he saw the ship come under attack. "Well if they are allies with the Collectors, then I'd hate to see how they treat enemies. Something's shooting at them."

* * *

"Now this is more like it!"

Rasen questioned the sanity of the pilot, "This is better? You want to be shot at?"

Vren was actually getting even more excited, "I wasn't expecting your ships to be this much fun."

Rasen was holding the hanging strap tightly, "You have a unique view of fun."

Bev just told her, "Remember what I said, when we step inside a gunship we place our lives in the crews' hands. If they die we're probably going to die too."

Rang jumped in on the side conversation, "But think of it this way, if we do end up a 'fireball of death' we can take pride in knowing Dagger's piloting skills will let us take a few of them with us in the inferno." Bev then smacked the back of Rang's helmet. "Ow…"

Aay'han simply laughed out loud after seeing that, "It's good to see nothing has changed you guys much."

The speakers in the hold came alive, "We're about to reach the LZ. It's hot down here, lots of marks." The light was still red but soon they could feel the gunship as it slowed down. In an instant the light turned green and the starboard bay door opened to Rookie firing a green beam from the ball turret at several Collectors and strange humanoid creatures made out of metal and tubes.

Rookie was cutting through them with ease providing cover for the team going out. Once they took cover, the gunship took off getting out of range. Almost like clockwork, Rang, Beviin and Aay'han fought like enraged krogan but as delicate as quarian dancers. Rasen watched in awe as the trio killed Collectors and the strange machines without harming a single colonist. They themselves were like machines when it came to their timing, accuracy and teamwork. Rasen had seen Rang and Bev in action before but something about those new people seemed to have brought back a spark Sigma Squad didn't have or simply lost. After a few moments of watching them fight, Rasen shock herself out of the awe and helped fight back.

Rasen was able to help during the scuffle, killing four Collectors and five of the machines that got too close to the group. With all enemies neutralized, Rang, Bev and Aay'han were implementing Rule 17: always make sure they're dead. When Rang looked at the cyber-being he finally remembered where he'd seen them before. "Hey Bev, this ugly mug look familiar?"

Bev glanced for a moment before kicking a Collector corpse, "It looks like Prudii's first kills in this galaxy."

"Ah, but looks can be deceiving. Sure they look exactly like the three Prudii killed on the Citadel but these things are more limber, and if my examination is correct then it's also stronger."

Before the two could go any further Aran radioed for a status report. "Bev, Aay'han what's your situation? We're spotted a group of Collectors. They're gathering the colonist and placing them into strange cocoons or pods."

Bev answered, "We ran into a bit of a mess just getting off. We've dealt with the problem."

Rang added, "Oh and watch your back, the Collectors might have a few of those pokers around. We ran into some husks but something's defiantly different about them then the three Prudii killed on the Citadel."

Aran was unusually quiet for a few seconds before he replied, "Thanks for the warning. Aran out."

Aay'han surveyed the area, "Looks like the Collectors already took a number of colonists. Think we should open the pods?"

"Yeah, but first…" Rang piled a few Collector bodies, "Yo Dagger! I've got a few corpses I want to take with us to the ship to study later. Mind if they're in the larty?"

"As long as you used Rule 17 around them I don't mind. We're coming around now."

* * *

After losing contact with the Normandy and their second Collector encounter, Shepard examined the bodies, in particular the husk looking creatures commenting to the squad, "These look like the husks the geth used on Eden Prime."

Garrus then spoke his mind, "I thought the geth got that technology from Sovereign."

Kasumi carefully moved past some of the dead Collectors, "Looks like Mr. Illusive was right. The Collectors are working for the Reapers."

Examining one of the more intact husks Mordin begins his observations, "Husks have human characteristics. Possibly repurposed colonist?"

Garrus argued, "No. The geth impaled their victims on giant spikes to turn them into husks. But we haven't seen any. The Collectors must have already had the husks. They want the colonists alive for something else."

The Commander took a better look at it, "These aren't the same creatures I fought on Eden Prime. They're more advanced. Evolved."

Grunt crushed a dead Collector's head under toe stating, "They still die when you shoot 'em."

Shepard pondered out loud, "The Collectors must be experimenting on the colonists. What are they up to?"

Garrus tried to not imagine, "Maybe it's better not to know the details."

"I agree with that." Kasumi blurted.

Mordin simply answered, "Find out for sure when you stop them."

Shepard turned to the others as he said, "The Collectors aren't getting away with more victims. Let's move out."

With weapons primed for assault, Grunt let out a loud, "Yeah!"

* * *

As Aran tried to devise a strategy, Garek seemed to have sense something the others could not. Garek's head started to move as though he was sniffing the air. Without a word Garek moved on ahead with only his lightsaber in hand. Nyona yelled at him through their comms, "What the hell is he doing? He's going to get us killed!"

Tare also didn't like the situation, "This doesn't seem like the General you've told us about Aran."

"I don't know. The General was the one who taught us a few of our better stealth tactics and techniques." It took a few seconds but Araniik found what Garek planned to do. "Mandalorians, provide cover fire for the General. Anything he doesn't target is ours to kill."

Out in the open, Garek stomped his feet loudly and started to make a hissing noise. Aran had heard many different recordings from Garek's helmet but something was different about the hissing, almost as if it was Garek himself. The Collectors in the area heard the noises and started to attack. To the amazement of everyone, other than Araniik, Garek move at almost god-like speed as his arms and active blade moved as one. The black cored light buzzed through the air as everyone could hear the metal slugs disintegrating with the sounds of zaps and the occasional flash. One of the Collectors pulled out a larger rifle. The Collector fired the weapon, and a beam made contact against Garek's lightsaber. Unlike the other weapons that functioned like the rest of this galaxy's standard mass accelerated weaponry, this weapon was beam based and was being refracted to the sky, which was all Garek needed. Garek started to turn his blade and the refracted beam followed. Garek continued using the beam to slice through the Collectors that didn't fall to Aran or the other Mandalorians.

The group had a few husks but they were easily felled by Araniik and the others. One of the 'clever' husks hid behind the building before lunging at Garek. Tare was about to take the shot when Aran stopped him, "This is the General's kill." In a flash the black blade sliced across the husk's abdominal region. The buzzing from the blade echoed from the empty buildings as the husk fell in two. The section where the blade met the husk was molten red yet the superheated metal did not catch the grass ablaze.

With the fall of the last husk, Garek looked around before deactivating his lightsaber and returning it to his belt. Aran walked out to speak with his former General, privately. "Sir, that was reckless. I would have expected that kind of stunt from General Skywalker, not you. What happened?"

Garek seemed to be preoccupied with something but he quickly responded, "We simply need to prevent these Collectors from collecting. The simplest way is to kill them before they can take the humans or the pods. We need to hurry if we want to save more."

* * *

**A/N: **Shepard's back again and he's with his squad. Yes I know you're only suppose to have two other squadies at a time but come on, Horizon under attack, I think that calls for more back up. As for the team I already explained up there. I sure some of you might complain that 'a Jedi is going to outbalance thing' or he's overpowered bla, bla. Don't worry he'll be hindered later(propably next chapter). So the quartet has been split, with Prudii gone with that change every thing and how will the other clones adjust. We'll probably find out in the next two chapters.

**Mando'a Translation: **Sorry nothing needs translating that already hasn't.


	28. Clean Sweep

**A/N: **One more chapter and Horizon should be done, hurray. Let's skip my ranting...

* * *

As Shepard and his team continue on, they found more frozen colonist being moved by Collectors. Shepard signals to Garrus and the duo reach for their sniper rifles. Garrus was targeting a pair that were moving one of the pods while Shepard took aim at a Collector standing near a door. When ready the two friends opened fire. Shepard was using an M-92 Mantis while Garrus had the M-29 Incisor. Shepard quickly downed the Collector with the powerful round was Garrus' Incisor brought both Collectors to a halt from the rapid fire burst of three rounds and the Collectors were close enough for Garrus to move the Incisor to hit both of them. Quickly more Collectors started to arrive, flying in using the wings hidden on their backs.

Grunt ran out charging at any Collector he could as Mordin and Kasumi entered the nearby building. Shepard and Garrus swapped weapons for their assault rifles, promptly joining Mordin and Kasumi. Grunt had rammed one of the Collectors against a wall, squishing it using the momentum and his armor before opening fire at the others. Mordin tossed an Incinerate tech burning down one of the Collectors hiding behind a ramp. Kasumi went bold as she cloaked herself using her tech and suddenly appearing behind one of the Collectors and giving it a death-blow from behind. The remaining Collectors turn to fire at her but she had already cloaked again. This gave Garrus, Grunt and Shepard the opportunity to gun down the Collectors.

* * *

As events continue to unfold on Horizon, Prudii continued to watch to the skies of Haestrom through the electrobinocular visor attached to his helmet, expecting something. One of the marines tried to get Prudii to move, "It's been three days since we established the base camp. The geth haven't found us, and I don't think standing out in the open like that will help either. Besides, aren't you hot in all of that dark armor?"

Prudii did not look to the quarian as he simply told him, "Built-in cooling system. Better get yourself inside."

The marine was persistent, "Why? It's our job to protect Tali'Zorah. You were hired on as an extra."

Prudii wanted to turn to the quarian but he forced himself to continue to scan the skies, "Geth know everything about quarians. Especially how to kill. Geth I've engaged always had Tare and Rasen as priority targets. Until we proved to be a greater threat. Already have plan. Quarians stay out of sight. Geth follow me instead. I radio when I need assistance. We close the trap. Haven't figured out what to do about the ship, yet."

The marine didn't think he would have a plan like that, "How long have you been thinking about that?"

"Since I was cleared to join the mission. Four, five hours tops." Before the marine could say anything about that Prudii spotted something on approach vectors. "Blast. Prudii to all quarians, we have a ship inbound. Geth. Still in upper atmosphere but getting closer."

Reegar wanted confirmation, "Can anyone else verify?"

Prudii then detached the visor from his helmet and handed it over to the marine next to him. After a few moments of readjusting the view he saw the ship as well. "This is Myr'Jorin, I'm currently with Prudii and I have visual on the craft. As Prudii said, the ship is still in the upper atmosphere but it is on an approach vector."

Reegar was quiet for a moment but he soon started to give out orders, "Marines, our primary objective is the safety of Tali'Zorah and the data. I'm going to take a team so she can get the last bit she needs. The rest will have to hold your positions; try to hold the geth off as long as possible."

Prudii tried to convince Reegar to try his plan. "Negative. Better plan. Quarians hide from geth. I lure them away from the base site. When I need, I call for back up. We close the pincer."

Reegar still didn't want to rely on outside help, "No offense but this was our mission first. I'm still in command. If you want to help, I'd suggest taking down any geth you find and helping my marines."

Prudii was starting to gain a begrudging respect for the marine captain. "Myr. Stay close. Try to keep up. Don't do anything stupid." As the two moved to get ready for the geth Prudii could help but think in his mind, _Wish the others were here._

* * *

"I wish Prudii was here." Rang continued on with the small talk, "If he was with us we'd already have taken back the colony by now."

Aay'han couldn't help but also note, "This is one of the few times I've ever seen the four of you voluntarily slit up like this. Especially with Prudii in a different star system."

"There are strategic advantages from dividing and conquering." Bev being the cold strategist he was.

Vren has been looking around for some time now. He finally decided to speak his mind about something bothering him, "You guys notice how quiet it's been."

"Other than those three, yeah." Rasen was also felling it, "Something's defiantly not right."

Suddenly their radios buzzed, "Heads up guys, you got more of those cyber things heading you way. And one of them looks funky."

Aay'han scanned the area when he spotted what Dagger meant. "By the Force, what kind of monstrosity is that?"

The thing looked like the husks but it had was a cannon grafted onto its left arm and a large pulsing sack of a hump on its back. Beviin shouted, "Aim for the sac! I'm detecting a massive amount of power coming from it. That should be a weak point."

Rang opened fire on the several husks trying to get to them instead, "Yeah, you do that. First I want to deal with these groupies before they decide to rip our heads off."

Vren grabbed his shotgun and started to knock down husks, "Me and the quarian will deal with these piles of parts, you three can handle the big thing."

Beviin disagreed, "No we work as a team. Our first priority are the ones that get too close to us. Rang." Bev tossed one of his Geonosian pikes.

"Not really my style but I can't complain." The two commandos started to take down husk after husk while the others provided support fire.

After downing about eight husks, Beviin's suit detected a power surge. Bev then looked towards the larger husk to see the hump beginning to get brighter before finally the cannon launched something that looked exactly like Nyona's Biotic Shockwave. "Look out!" Everyone dove out of the way of the attack as the larger husk slowly started to get closer. "We need to take that think out now!"

"Hold tight Sigma, reinforcements on the way." The husk fired two more pho-Shockwaves before the sounds of the gunship started to ring out.

"That is one ugly sucker."

"No time for that Jak. We have _vode_ to save." Rook and Jak then proceeded to firing at the husk. But the husk wasn't going down without a fight. The left arm was lifted toward the air and the weapon started to fire. Luckily for Jak the gunship's new shields protected him and the turret. The green laser fire easily punctured through the husk's metal body and the hump on its back burst with black and blue goo.

Jak didn't like the look of that thing as he asked Rang, "Please tell me you don't want to study this one too. I think we already have enough corpses onboard."

Rang carefully moved to the downed monstrosity and kicked it in the head. "Nope. Plan on looking inside right now. Bev, knife if you please?" Bev pulled the knife out of the sheath strapped to his left leg and tossed it at the dead husk striking at what would have been a heart. "Nice. Very nice." Rang pulled the bladed towards the stomach trying to gut it open. Finally pulling the knife out Rang shouted, "Damn things tough. Sorry Bev, I almost broke your knife." Rang nonchalantly handed the knife back handle first. "Hello, hello. This is awesomely nasty."

Aay'han knew he was going to regret it but asked anyway, "What is it Rang?"

"Sucker is full synthetic. No real organic components left. Unless you count the Biotic sac it's carrying but that was fused onto it." Rang started to dig into the dead husk until he found something, "Bingo!"

Bev was the one ask this time, "Find something useful?"

"I don't know about useful, but it is interesting. I found evidence of splicing here and from what I know from human anatomy, which happens to be a lot, big boy here was once three small fries."

Rasen couldn't look any longer as more green goo flushed out of the opening. "Rang are we done here? Can we move on now?"

"Just a sec, Ras?" Rang pulled himself out of the corpse covered in the goo. Rang was trying to get as much off, "Just like Geo gunk, only green. Uh…this is going to take forever to get out. I really hope it doesn't stink as bad." Rang continued to try shaking off the ooze.

Beviin reported the situation, "Araniik, this is Beviin. We have encountered a new variant of the husk. This thing appears to be capable of mimicking the Biotic Shockwave ability Nyona has demonstrated. It also has weapon capabilities."

"Thanks for the intel. We'll proceed with caution. Araniik out."

Beviin turned back to the others, "Let's move squad. We have a lot of ground to cover and more Collectors to stop."

Aay'han laughed to himself as he also told himself privately, "You four have changed more than you all might have realized. I think Vhonte would have liked seeing the four of you like this."

* * *

After examining a pair of frozen colonist Shepard found a Collector Particle Beam weapon. Passing several pods several more Collectors started to fly in to combat Shepard and his team. From a distance, a very unusual looking Collector with many limbs was monitoring the situation on Horizon. The four eyed insect focused on the Collectors amassing near Shepard. The Collector's eyes began to intensify in its glow as it continued to look directly at the holographic monitor. Suddenly the Collector on Horizon began to convulse in a similar manner the fallen Spectre Saren once did as its body began to glow. The Collector was lifted into the air as the Collector General stated through it, "I am assuming direct control." The Collector on the field pulled its limbs in then flung them out as a burst of energy released from it. The Collector quickly got back to its feet tossing aside the weapon it once held as cracks appeared all over its body in a magma-like appearance as smoke started to come from that particular Collector. The Collector's eyes were now glowing as intensely like the leader. The other Collectors moved to cover and proceeded to attack Shepard's group as the 'possessed' Collectors started to launch balls of fire from its hands at them shouting, "My attacks will tear you apart."

* * *

Proceeding through the colony Nyona didn't like the situation, "This place has gotten too quiet. What are those Collectors up too?"

Garek was moving through the colony as though nothing was there. He commented on Nyona's remark, "That's because they have found something more interesting than us. I can sense that something, someone in particular has grabbed their attention."

Aran thought aloud, "If Shepard is here, and the Collectors are connected to the Reapers, that might explain why we haven't encountered heavier resistance."

Garek soon fell to his knees. He was grabbing his head as if in pain when he started to scream. The pain filled wails got the attention of nearby husks and more Collectors. Before they Collectors could start attacking Araniik shouted, "Get to cover!"

"Mandalorians, take them down!" As Nyona and the other opened fire on the Collectors and husks, Araniik moved in with an ACP repeater in hand. Aran grabbed Garek and moved to cover. There were a few close calls with the husks but Nyona and Tare were able to keep them off Aran's back, as Forta distracted the Collectors with his tech attacks.

Once in cover Aran asked Garek, "General, what's the matter? What just happened?"

Garek was still feeling something but he was forced himself through the pain to explain, "Voices…trillions of voices speaking at once…they scream in pain. The same pain I felt…I felt on that world…the one you called…Ilos. I did not notice until now…the voices…these Collectors…they share the echoes…the echoes…of that world."

As Garek tried to get back up on his feet, Aran stopped him, "General, you're in no condition to continue fighting." Aran then radioed the gunship, "Dagger, we need an air lift. Man down."

"Do you need Rang or the meddroid?"

"Negative. Just get over here." After that Aran joined the fighting continuing to use the ACP repeater. By the time Aran did join only five Collectors and three husks were left. Forta continued to toss tech mines at the Collectors and husks as both seemed to be affected by Overload and Sabotage. Nyona had found that the Collectors themselves were particularly vulnerable to Biotics. As Nyona grabbed one in a Warp the Collector she hit seemed to stagger more than usual targets. Tare was doing a great job keeping the husks at bay, taken most down before they could get close. Aran continued to rip through the Collectors with the Trandoshan-made SMG until the field was clear.

Not two minutes after the fighting the LAAT arrives. Nyona, being herself, yelled, "Now that ship arrives? We could have used it during the fight."

Forta didn't mind, "At least they didn't get in the way."

The port side doors opened with Swoop waiting to assist the wounded. "General?" Aran was helping Garek walk over to the gunship. "Are you sure he doesn't need medical attention?"

As Swoop helped Garek up, Aran replied, "Mostly. I think it has something to do with the Force, otherwise no other injuries. The General is not fit to fight. He sensed something that caused him to suffer a sever migraine that made him scream in pain."

Even with his helmet, even the others could see the shock on Swoop's face. "Come on sir." Swoop sat the weakened Jedi against the starboard door as he went to activate the IM-6 medical droid.

As customary, the compact medical droid unfolded and responded, "IM-6 activated. Ready to heal."

Swoop pointed, "Tend to the General." Swoop took a few seconds to watch the little droid in flight but soon returned to his station.

As the small silver droid hovered to his side the gunship door closed and the gunship took off. Aran turned his attention back to the others, "Let's move. We still have a job to do." Aran reviewed a map of the colony through his suit's HUD, "Looks like we're going to intersect with Shepard and the others soon enough. Let's head to the generator. I'm sure we'll find something hiding in there."

Nyona had a private chat with the lead Mandalorian as they proceeded cautiously, "What the hell was that? What happened to your Jedi?"

Aran continued to keep it private keeping his weapon at the ready, "I don't know. I've never seen a Jedi break down like that. The only one that comes close is General Skywalker or so I've been told. Nice job leading the others by the way."

"You knew?"

"Of course." Araniik explained, "I trust all of you. Nyona, you are a leader, weather you are willing to admit it or not. You just need to foster the others like they were your children or younger siblings."

* * *

From the shadow of a building, Beviin was watching as more Collectors flew off in the same direction, towards team two's original route. Bev used his thermal scanner to judge what was left. "We still have a few Collectors and husks on guard. Nothing we can't handle." Bev then signaled Rang and Vren to scout ahead.

Looking at the scene, Vren reported, "I don't see any other humans left. Collectors are moving out. They're taking the last pod in the area too. I don't see any husks around."

Bev then called Dagger, "Gunship, what are you guys seeing?"

"I see a fight going on right now. And it's not team one."

Aay'han stepped up again, "Who are they Dagger? Can you get a visual?"

"Hang on…" The comm. was quiet for a time but Dagger soon returned, "Got it. One of those turian fellows is fighting down there alongside what looks like a smaller krogan. There's also one of them salarian and two humans and they're getting attacked by several Collectors and those cyberthings, what'd you call them, husks?"

Rang then pestered the pilot, "Can you give us anything else, like armor colors or any other distinguishing features that you can see from however high you guys are?"

Swoop reported, "No one has any helmets from what we can tell. The turian's in blue armor, the krogan in silver armor. The salarian doesn't look like he's wearing armor. More like a lab coat or something like that. One of the humans is in all black but that doesn't look like armor either. The other human is in grey combat armor. The only other thing that sticks out from up here is the red strip on the grey armor's right side."

"Hey Bev, it sounds like an N7 graduate. And how many N7 graduates do we know who fights alongside turians and krogans?"

Beviin immediately contacted Araniik, "Araniik. Beviin reporting. Dagger has provided us with data that confirms Shepard's presence on Horizon. It can be speculated that he is what's been grabbing the Collectors' attention."

"Good to know." Aran then contacted Dagger directly, "Dagger, this is Aran, can you tell where they're going?"

"From the fighting I'd have to guess they're heading to the spaceport. What…" The comm. was quiet again, longer then the last time. "Sorry Aran, we're pulling back a bit."

"Pulling back? What for?"

Swoop answered, "The General's getting a major headache again, he said worse than when he was ground side. I think we got too close to something."

"Understood. But what is there that they are interested in…" Aran pulled up the map of Horizon again on his omni-tool. With the data of the fighting, Aran started looking around. "Got it." Aran instantly contacted everyone, "Mandalorians, Dagger and the gunship are going to swing by for pick up. We're going to have a major fight on our hands."

* * *

The team finished off all of the husks and Collectors as they worked to finish the Scion. Garrus fired sniper rounds into the head as the others continued to distract the monster. Grunt was more than willing to rush the thing, as he did, but the young krogan found the Scion's armor to be tough as the construct kept its balance and swung its rifle of an arm at Grunt. Shepard was firing at the Scion to grab its attention as Mordin and Kasumi tossed tech attacks, an Incinerate and Flashbang Grenades. Garrus was able to get another shot into the back that burst the sac releasing blue goo that almost resembled eezo. With that tough fight finished, Grunt looked around noting, "How come we don't see more frozen people around?"

Kasumi added, "I'm not complaining, but it feels creepy."

Mordin speculated, "Colonists loaded onto ship. Collectors nearly finished her. Need to hurry."

Shepard reached the locked door leading to the spaceport and controls for the defense towers. He turned to the others as each one nodded, ready for what was awaiting behind those door.

* * *

**A/N: **Sorry for such a abscene of updates(at least from my point of view) but work and school you know. I hate sounding like a commercial but as I said I don't remember how long ago but I don't promote my own stuff. I rely mostly on others telling friends and people with the same intrest or the random passerbyer. Commercial over now! I'll explain what happened to the Jedi soon enough, but I'm sure you can guess just by the set up. The tech mines affecting Collectors/husk. Key word, Affect, I said nothing about damage or hurting. A note about the 'possessed' Collector throwing down its weapon, yeah I know it doesn't do that but when we(as players) fight it, Harbinger only uses Biotic like attacks forgetting completely about the weapon in hand. I figure why not just go for broke and toss the weapon all together so it could attack with both hands. The last bit on Horizon is going to be fun, especially with what I have planned.

**Mando'a Translation: **Sorry nothing needs translating that already hasn't(again).


	29. A Port full of trouble

**A/N: **WOW...so much going on in the world...Bin Laden delared dead...all this Mass Effect 3 info...and my work. Since I was gone so long I'm giving a special 2 chapter update. Sorry, another underestimation on my part of 3000 odd words.

* * *

Opening the door, Shepard and his team slowly moved towards the transmitter. Before they could even past the first set of cargo, screams from Scions echoed out. From behind the transmitter a pair started to move towards Shepard. The Scions continued to moan which brought a small army of husks to assist. Grunt shouted loudly, "I AM KROGAN!" Grunt started to rush a group of husk.

Garrus was forced to switch his sniper rifle for the M-15 Vindicator Battle Rifle. Garrus used the butt of the rifle to knock back a husk as he started to shoot down others. "Just like old times Shepard!"

Shepard had gone back to back with his turian friend as he continued to gun down husk with the Collector Rifle that Cerberus had acquired. "Throw in a few geth, maybe a krogan battlemaster, it'd be just like fighting Saren."

One of the Scion fired the Shockwave-like power. "Watch out!" As the waves continued towards Kasumi, she jumped backward just barley avoiding the blast. She pulled out the M-12 Locust in her left hand with the M-5 Phalanx in her right. Kasumi gunned down a few husks. After landing a husk tried to attack her from behind. Just before its arm could land its strike, Kasumi disappeared saying, "Now you see me…" Within seconds she reappeared, with the Locust strapped to her hip again, she struck the husk with her right arm with an active omni-tool. Kasumi disappeared again and reappeared next to Dr. Solus, "That was close."

Mordin tossed an Incinerate tech at an incoming husk as it burned to a crisp. "Wish I weren't standing downwind!"

* * *

The gunship arrived to pick up the last team. Inside, Rang was examining one of the dead Collectors in the back of the gunship. Beviin greeted Aran as he hopped into the hold, "Welcome back _vod_."

Aran gave Bev a fist pump, "Good to be back. Rang, find a way to kill these bastards faster?"

"Just a sec boss man." Rang tossed a pair of Collectors out of the gunship and burned the bodies with an Incinerate tech. After which, Rang started to stuff the rest of the corpses back into the small hold where a pair of speeder would have been.

Vren asked team one in general, "So, how many kills have you guys gotten?"

Nyona was the only one to indulge an answered, "Personally killed eighteen things today. Assisted with seven."

With everyone in, the bay doors closed and the gunship took off. Aran then moved to the cockpit and banged on the side, "Get us to the spaceport."

"Copy that. Next stop bug city. Hope you guys are ready for it."

* * *

They have been fighting for about three minutes, taking out most of the husks and one of the Scions but the husks seemed to just keep coming. Suddenly a low humming sound started to fill the air. The humming was getting louder but still kept its relatively low decibels. The same odd gunship arrived. The ship started to fire green beams of light out of the four balls, two on the end of the wings and the other two were next to the sides. The beams precisely gunned down husk after husk as the ship was getting closer to the ground. The sides opened up to reveal the Mandalorians along with another unknown person who's armor configuration looks more like one of the men controlling the ball turrets. The team was efficient as they also brought down husk at the elevated level. The Scion tried to bring down the gunship but the weapon fire hit a rather strong shield of some type. The front of the gunship turned to the Scion and the guns in front also fired green beams but in busts as it shredded through the Scion as if it was made out of wood. With the area cleared, the gunship moved itself between Shepard and the transmission tower.

Now a head was visible near the top, possibly a second behind. Aran was visibly ordering them around but he kept the chatter between their radios.

* * *

"Mandalorians, defensive spread! Vren, Rang. We're going to move some of these crates to better protect C3 while she slices the tower. Move out Mandalorians!"

The others started to make sure the husks and Scions were down permanently as the LAAT pulled back.

As the others continued their jobs, Beviin greeted Shepard, "Commander Shepard." Beviin might have given a salute to Shepard, were it not for his official KIA status. "We have the situation under control. All we need now is time and some luck."

Shepard had to ask the blue armored commando, "How did you guys know about Horizon and why aren't you being affected?"

Rang was listening in on Bev's channel as he shouted, "Your 'illusive' friend decided to try and use reverse psychology to have us go, in my opinion, so he could capture us easily."

Vren, Aran and Rang had taken three large crates and moved them around the tower's controls.

The little red and blue droid used her jet thrusters to 'jump' down from the gunship to the flat ground around the transmitter. She rolled into the new enclosure as Vren placed the last crate down. Vren saw the young krogan before the gunship touched down. Vren moved to the krogan and sized him up. The young krogan was in silver armor with no sleeves. Vren could easily tell how young he was, as the krogan was rather short and the ridges on his head had not formed into a solid crest yet. He could see the krogan was examining him in his blue and gold armor. "Good kid. Too bad you don't have a true krogan role model to learn from." Before the younger krogan could argue otherwise, Vren turned around and left.

Nyona reported on an open channel, "Clear. All hostiles are dead, for the moment."

Garrus asked Bev, "So, friend of yours?" The scared turian pointed towards the gunship that hovered above them.

Beviin only answered, "_Vode_." Shepard tried to get to the transmitter but Beviin stopped him. "Sorry, commander, but we have someone working to restore the turrets."

Shepard tried to explain, "Turning them on isn't the only problem the…" Before he could say a series of beeps and whistles started to come from the direction of the tower.

Beviin placed a finger to the side of his helmet, nodding. "The targeting system is not properly calibrated. A simple fix for who's doing the job."

Kasumi then asked, "And who might that be, 'Mr. Expert Slicer'?" Kasumi and Keiji once worked with a few of the Mandalorians on a job, Bev and Rang were some of them.

Forta was watching the little astromech droid at work cutting into the panel starting to cut wires and solder things together. "Are you sure about that?" The droid started to buzz angrily at the batarian for questioning her. "Alright, I'll let you do your job." The droid then started to whistle in a joyous manner.

Dagger translated to the team, "C3 says she's restored comms but it's going to be weak if we contact the ship. She's starting on fixing the targeting program now."

Aran finally got over to Shepard to greet the former Spectre. "Shepard. We keep meeting in the strangest of situations. Garrus, if you want to use your sniping skills to the fullest you can join Nyona and the others." As he said that the gunship returned touching down with the doors open. Rasen, Nyona, Rang and Forta returned to the gunship's bay.

Dagger used the speakers, "Gun calibrations are finished. When you're ready, she'll start up activation sequence. C3's reporting it'll take time for the generators to produce the proper level of energy and we'll be a hot target once it starts."

The young krogan knew what that meant, "The Collectors will try to stop it. Good." Vren remembered his youthful days when he was like that, ready and eager to fight anything.

Garrus grabbed his sniper rifle and shrugged his shoulders, "Why not. I've never had a chance to snipe from a ship before."

Rang used the loud speakers on, "Don't worry, we got you covered with precision shooters and lots of explosions."

Swoop took over the speaker, "Buggers inbound! Northeast of the tower!"

As the Collectors start to fly in, one of them became 'empowered' in midflight. The moment that process started Garek was screaming in pain again. Swoop and Dagger had no choice but to move themselves further away from the battlefield. The sudden movement away, made Garrus lose sight of his target, which prompted him to yell, "Hey, the battles that way!" Garrus then saw Garek on the floor, "And what's wrong with him?" Garrus turned specifically to Rang, "Can't you give him sedatives or something?"

Rang shook his head, "Not as simple as that. If I could, I would help, but I can't. It's complicated. You and Ny are only one who can help for the time being."

Nyona couldn't complain, as she already did before to Aran. Nyona adjusted the zoom so she could see with her scope and started to shoot at Collectors. Garrus looked at her and joined in.

* * *

Back on the battlefield Grunt saw as the gunship pulled further away. "Cowards!"

Aay'han defended their actions, "They aren't retreating. They're moving to a more 'suitable' location for the moment."

Vren took a few opportune shots at the Collectors still flying in, "Less chatting more killing ladies!"

As they cut down Collectors, the 'possessed' Collector started to speak. "Mandalorians; you are nuisances. There is no place for you or any of your brood." The Collector tossed a black orb, slower than the fire balls he had tossed earlier. It made contact with a crate Beviin was hiding behind and knocked him to the ground like a blast from an LJ-50. The Collector then stated as he stood above the commando, "You cannot stop us. I am the Harbinger of perfection." Before he could launch the fire ball in hand the Collector was hit by a series of blue light.

"You just don't know when to shut up?"

The Harbinger 'possessed' Collector stated, "You only damage the vessel, you cannot hurt me." Aay'han blasted it about five more time as the body disintegrated itself. As the body turned to ash, Harbinger stated, "Kill one and one hundred will replace it."

Aay'han quickly pulled Beviin out of the line of fire. "_Me'vaar ti gar_?"

Bev got back to his feet grabbing Aay'han's hand, "_Naas_." The two of them exchanged a nod and reengaged.

Tare was taking cover behind the tower. As he reloaded his assault rifle the quarian noticed, "Husks, coming from the west."

Mordin was behind cover as he turned to see. Dr. Solus tossed an Incinerate tech as he shouted, "Should burn through any armor."

That dealt with one of them as more continued to come. The young krogan wanted to charge recklessly and seeing the husk gave him an excuse. "Feel the blood rage!"

Vren saw a bit of himself in the kid, not much but enough that the vet was going to keep the Collectors off the kid's back. An occasional sniper round would find its target that was out of range for the others.

* * *

"He wants to do what!"

Rang repeated himself, "Hey don't yell at me Swoop, he said he wanted to go down there. I wouldn't mind getting closer so I can blast a few but not at the General's expense."

Garek got back on his own, leaning against the wall. "I am a Jedi. I will help…even in this weakened state." Garek started to remove his boots and gloves, tossing them to Rang. Before removing the helmet Garek gave one final order, "Warn your brothers…and the others. They will need to stay as far away from me as they can. This will also be an opportunity to help out."

As soon as the helmet was clear off Garek's head, Rang started panicking, "Wait, you're a…and we've said…but you're also a…ah blast."

Forta couldn't tell, "I don't get it? What's wrong?"

Rasen remembered some of the tales Sigma Squad spun during their down time back on the ship. She could tell this is one of the species Rang talked about fighting as often as the droids or Geonosians.

* * *

After a grueling fight, it seemed the Collectors had stopped. As Tare and Kasumi checked the area near the transmitter, more Collectors started to fly in. "Aran, we have more bugs. South of the tower!"

"Mandalorians, defend C3 and that tower with your lives!" Everyone started to move to position to engage the Collectors taking a few down before they could land.

As suddenly as the Collectors appeared, an open channel transmission broadcasted, "To all Mandalorians and others fighting the Collectors, hold your positions. Repeat, hold your positions. You're about to get destructive reinforcements."

The Harbinger continued his banter in his attempts to weaken moral, "You prolong the inevitable. Face annihilation."

Aran turned to Shepard, "Tell your krogan to stand down, unless he wants to die here."

"Grunt, get over here." The young krogan seemed to respond to the name as he took cover next to Shepard.

Grunt seemed as though he wanted to yell as Shepard about hiding but before a word could escape his scale covered lips, the gunship returned within audible range. Nyona, Garrus and Rang fired at the Collectors before a shadowed figured jumped from the highly elevated gunship. The figure somehow evaded all of the fire from the Collectors as it landed behind a few crates. Suddenly a bloodcurdling roar echoed across the area.

As the Collectors moved in to try and contain the new factor, the figure became clearer. The being's body was covered in scales of olive green and strips of black. This new being was relentless in its assault. It killed the Collectors without remorse, stabbing the first clean through the chest with its razor sharp claws. The yellow fluids dripped from the Collector down the being's arm. The first Collector was tossed aside like a ragdoll, turning its claws against the next Collector slashing it across its body. The reptilian-like being grabbed another Collector, slamming it to the ground only to jab the neck through with its claws. It's when the being pulled out a small silver cylinder like device when Araniik, Beviin and Aay'han knew. Araniik then yell to everyone, "Stand down, we'll only get in the way!"

"Why should we?"

Rang answered young Grunt's question, "Just wait a few seconds plate face. You'll see why few ever survive a fight against a Jedi." The silver cylinder activated with a buzz as a humming black beam about 1.3 meters long appeared. Garek then swung it, making a clean slice from shoulder to hip as a Collector fell in two; the sliced area was molten hot.

"You are ignorant, we are knowing." The blade was quickly deactivated as Garek jumped out of the way of Harbinger's attacks. Landing behind it, the black blade reappeared with a buzz as it pierced through the possessed Collector. The Collector was lifted into the air for a few moments before the body gave out and started to dissipate. "This form is irrelevant."

The other Collectors tried to hit Garek but the black blade blocked all projectiles that would have hit. The others could hear the sizzle as the metal slugs made contact with the humming blade. The cylinder was tossed from Garek's hands to the Collectors as he took cover behind some crates, the black blade was still active as it sliced through the group of Collectors and their weapons as if they were comprised of paper. The blade cut through anything the black light touched and as it approached C3's barrier, the blade started to turn, acting like a boomerang, returning to the Jedi. There were still three Collectors left as they attempted to fight but Garek simply used his hands to deflect every shot. One of the Collectors placed a barrier that resembled a holographic bug hive. Instead of attacking, Garek ran to the barrier and ran up the curved shield and pushed off, grabbing the retuning, deactivated, blade.

As the Jedi pushed off, Rang and the gunship had moved into position, "Smile for me ugly!" Rang had his LJ-50 in hand as he fired the shot. The shot made contact with the barrier and quickly started to build up energy before imploding, destroying the barrier and severely injuring two of the Collectors behind it. Rang fired a second round to finish the dying pair off, leaving the last one for the Jedi to deal with. The last Collector was trying to get the jump on him, using tactics similarly seen executed by a B1 battle droid. Unforeseen by the Collector was the unprecedented speed by which Garek moved intercepting it before it was in position. The Collector tried to fire but the shots were blocked by the black blade. Garek cut the weapon in two rendering the Collector helpless. Garek produced a faint snarl as he moved closer to the Collector. As they watched, Garek raised his right arm, and as the arm was raising so too was the last Collector. Garek's hand started to squeeze as though holding something, at the same time the Collector was trying to remove something that apparently was chocking it. No matter how hard it tried to grab to weaken this mysterious grip there was nothing but itself to claw at. The Collector was heard making strange clicking noises before Garek snarled once more and finally crushed his hand tightly. At the same time the neck and part of the face of the Collector caved in on itself. The hanging Collector floated in the air, lifeless, for several moments before the Jedi tossed his arm towards the tower and the Collector flew in that direction.

Dagger scanned the area before finally declaring, "Area's cleared!"

The three clones on the ground rushed to aid their Jedi General, "General. Are you alright sir?"

As they checked on Garek, Garrus looked around. He still didn't like the situation, "Get ready. Got to be more soon."

Dagger tried to lower the gunship so they could pick up the exhausted Jedi, but as the ship started to lower a pair of machines started to fly over from the Collector ship. The pair looked like four-legged jellyfish but as they got closer they became visible. They were a new form of husk, an abomination greater, and probably more powerful, than the Scions encountered before. The top of the head was similar to the Collectors in shape and design, having an almost saucer shaped head and four eyes. These one must have been created from dozens of husks as several heads could be seen within what might have anatomically be considered a mouth. One of the new machines slammed down onto the ground, releasing a splash of Biotic next to the tower. C3 was trying not to draw attention to herself within the confined space but that wasn't easy for a scared droid. The second one aimed for the gunship trying to slam into it with the four sword-like legs, but Swoop and Dagger evaded the initial strike and flew off with the machine continuing to give chase.

Dagger closed the bay doors, "Hang tight fellas, this is going to get rough." The LAAT started to make sharp turns and skim tops of buildings. The new husk did not have any trouble, as it used the four limbs to push off the buildings. "Swoop, take control of the tail gun. Try to take that bastard out!"

Swoop e took manually control of the tail gun leaving the flying completely up to Dagger. "Eat plasma you son of a Murglak." The anti-personnel turret let loose a barrage of green plasma bolts at the incoming hostile. The bolts hit but there was some type of purple shield. "Damnit! Bastard's shielded! This is going to take longer than I'd hope."

"Evasive maneuvers!" Jak and Rook's turrets couldn't turn far enough for them to help but they could see the monster just fine as they both saw the four eyes light up. The eyes then shot out beams that formed together to make a stronger laser. The laser was strong but the shield from the ARC-170 was stronger.

Dagger saw the readings of the attack as it started to drain the shields. "Hang tight; this is going to get rough." The gunship pulled a hairpin turn around a large building.

* * *

**A/N: **Sorry, I was wrong, now the next chapter will finish Horizon off.

**Mando'a Translation: **About time...Sorry I don't have much.

Me'vaar ti gar?(Meh-VAR tee-GAR)- How are you? (Lit: what's new with you?) Can also be used to ask a soldier for a sitrep. If a Mando asks you this, they expect an answer; it's literal.. The response for "I'm fine thanks," is "Naas." (Literally - nothing. )

Naas(nahs)- nothing


	30. Colonial Distress

**A/N: **We're all clear kids now lets finish this thing and move on...(Yes, I know not the best use of the quote but I've got nothing)

* * *

With Dagger and the others dealing with their own problem, Araniik, Shepard and the others had to deal with this one on their own. The new husk abomination hovered in the air about five feet off the ground. Garek was showing signs of exhaustion from his battle against the Collectors and the mental one he continues to fight. Even with the three clones with him, Garek used the Force to move the three of them aside behind some crates and a platform. Garek roared at the new threat in an attempt to draw its attention. The roar worked, as the large machine moved towards the Jedi. Shepard and the others opened fire on the brute but it continued as though they did not exist. An energy surge started to build up within, as the four main eyes started to glow. A split second after blue laser beams shot out and formed one bigger, stronger beam. Garek quickly activated his lightsaber and deflected the attack towards the sky. The husk continued this onslaught as Garek twisted his lightsaber so the beam was now attacking the ship in the distance.

The three clones were not going to let Garek fight alone as they reestablished their footing and joined the fight as well. As they fought, Vren saw Grunt as he continued to move closer to the machine. Vren grabbed the young krogan by the shoulder and told him, "Some fights are better fought from a distance. Sure this thing is big, but we keep going like this we can win."

With the sustained fire from everyone together they easily broke through the Biotic barrier protecting it and started to chip away at the tough armor plating. After some damage the husk started to glow purple with hexagons covering it before slammed into the ground and released a wave of energy. Beeps and whistles started to come from C3 as she gave a status report on the AA guns. Dagger continued to monitor her channels and translated for the others, "The generators are firing at 100%. She's beginning to target the bug hive in the sky." After that the surrounding towers started to turn upward toward the Collector ship. With all turrets ready C3 didn't wait for the suggestion to open fire, as the cannons did their job, the other had to try and finish off this last problem.

* * *

"Bastard just won't die!" Swoop was starting to get pissed as every time significant amount of damage can be dealt to the machine, it would slam on top of a building and full recharge its shields.

Rang grabbed one of the overhanging bars and pounded the port bay door, "Yo Swoop, knock that things shields down again, but this time after you do that, tell me then open this door. I'll blow it to bits."

Nyona also knocked on the opposite door, "Open the doors now. I'm not letting this bastard be what kills me." The other grabbed one of the many overhanging bars as the rush of wind, from both doors opening, started to flow through again. "Forta, take down the shields!"

The batarian moved to the side to toss an Overload at their pursuer. "Tech going out!" It took less time for the small tech mine to find its way to the husk. The tech hit but did nothing. "No go, it's a Biotic barrier!"

Nyona wanted to yell at the inaccuracy but Rang stepped in, "Don't worry about it, Swoop. Sigma Squad had difficulty telling the difference a shield and a barrier the first time too." Nyona leaned out and yelled as she launched a powerful Biotic warp that made contact against their tailgater. Rang pulled out a thermal detonator out from his pack, "Dagger, slower her down, we're going to need as much distance as we can get when I'm through with it."

Jak saw the thermal detonator questioning, "How's one thermal going to do anything?"

"This puppy isn't just a simple thermal detonator." Rang started to show off the detonator with his left hand to the gunner making sure he saw the painting of his helmet with a talk bubble in Aurebesh with the word 'Rangir'. "This guy's been modified to be extra explosive."

"By how much?"

Rang turned to the port ball turret, "Well Jak, I can safely say with the distance we got going now, not good enough."

"As long as we can make it. Now let's kill this thing once and for all." Dagger slowed the LAAT down while making sure the husk didn't get a hold of them.

Rasen was warned Rang, "Be careful _vod_."

Rang turned to her and shrugged, "Ain't I always sis?"

Rasen sarcastically replied, "Prudii or Beviin usually have to save you."

Rang quickly answered her, "That's because I know they will." Rang hooked the safety line onto a railing as he hung himself out the door. The flying husk continued its pursuit but never attempted to evade any attack yet. Rang activated his omni-tool with his right holding onto the sparking combat drone. "OK little buddy you're going to help me kill bug-ugly." Rang placed the special thermal detonator inside the drone's core as he got ready for the toss. "One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready and boom you gooooo!" The toss was perfect, as the combat drone flew uninhibited into the beast's 'mouth' landing snug between two husk heads. "Gun it!" The gunship kicked in the afterburner gaining distance. Dagger started to make the gunship go as high and fast up as he could. Rang signaled to the others how short of a fuse the detonator had as he started to count down from four. Three, Two, One, Boom. Even in the air the group felt the shockwave as Dagger and Swoop leveled the gunship out and slowly descended. A loud inhalation sound could be heard over the comm. "Ah…I'd almost forgotten how much I love this smell."

Nyona had always questioned Rang's stability, "What, the smell of burning metal?"

Rook replied, "That's usually the smell of a job well done and bunch of clackers destroyed."

"Alright, enough with the bickering. Time to get back and help the others."

* * *

Garek continued to evade the laser while drawing its attention away from the others. As the Jedi prepared for another sprint across the open spaceport, Garek felt the crushing pain from Harbinger's presence. _I am unstoppable. You cannot stop us. We are limitless._

As the voice echoed in his mind, Garek could no longer stand and fell to his knees. The husk-like creature climbed over the truck the Jedi was using as cover before pouncing. One of the sword-like appendages pierced through the General's left arm as Garek wailed in pain. "Commandos! Stand down!" The order came from Aay'han.

Falling back into old habits Araniik called him out, "Advisor, if we don't do something, that thing is going to kill the General!"

"I know…but…something in the back of my mind is telling me to stop you."

Beviin thought about it and considered the possibility that Garek was communicating his thoughts through him. "Aran…"

"Just thought about it too." Aran broadened the comm. "Tare, Vren, Shepard. Stand down. The General has this one."

Kasumi was the first to question this call, "Are you sure? It looks more like he needs our help now more than ever."

Mordin agreed, "Yes. Situation dire. Without assistance, could lead to death. Not necessary."

Grunt could care less but still, "Let him prove he deserves their respect. If he wants to die like that then let him."

Vren was willing to follow but he still couldn't help but question the sanity of the move. "I hope you know what you're doing Araniik."

Aran whispered himself, "I do too Vren…"

The whole time the large husk creature was trying to jab the other extremity though the Jedi's skull but powers unknown to it were acting against it as it held the arm against the will of the body. The arm itself had become a shield of sorts as it was now positioned between Garek and the husk's primary eyes. With the creature incapable of attacking, Garek used his lightsaber to slice off the husk's arm that had pinned him to the ground. But even with the metal limb ripped out, the stab had severed the median nerve. With no feeling left in part of the arm, Garek sliced off his own arm just above the jab wound. Garek again let out a pain filled wail as the forces holding the husk released its grip.

Garek seemed to have finally gotten over the pain as the flying husk tried to stab him through again. But something had clicked in the Jedi as Garek jumped over the beast. During the jump, the Jedi made several swings with his lightsaber at the brute before landing. As Garek landed, the husk started to segment at every point Garek had sliced. But as the husk continued to separate into segments, the body started to disintegrate. The disintegration was caused by nanites that destroy the entire machine in a flash of blue.

Soon after the creature's disintegration, the rings that were spinning around the Collector ship abruptly stopped as other parts started to move into different positions. When all of the components finally stopped, the engines started up. The blast incinerated everything underneath as the anti-air turrets continued their assault against the fleeing ship. Kasumi yelled, "They're leaving." The Collector vessel seemed no worse for wear, as the rings started spinning again. As the ship left the atmosphere and the others could look without fear of burns, Kasumi noted, "Most of the colonists are on board. They got what they came for."

A mechanic ran out shouting, "No! Don't let them get away!"

Shepard seemed to know the mechanic as he tried to reason with him, "There's nothing we can do. They're gone." While Shepard was dealing with the only colonist not frozen, the Mandalorians were tending to their own.

The mechanic was in distress, "Half of the colony's in there! They took Egan and Sam and…and Lilith. Do something!"

Shepard told him, "I didn't want it to end this way. I did what I could."

Kasumi was trying to be supportive to the Commander, "Yeah, you did, Shep."

Grunt could care less about the humans as he told the Commander, "It was a good fight, Shepard."

"Shepard?" The mechanic had to pause to remember. "Wait. I know that name. Sure, I remember you. You're some type of big Alliance hero.

Out from behind some of the crates, Operations Chief Williams starts walking over. She still wears the white and pink Phoenix from when she worked with the Commander. "Commander Shepard. Captain of the Normandy. The first human Spectre. Savior of the Citadel." Ashley had joined the small circle as she turned to the mechanic, "You're in the presence of a god, Delan. Back from the dead." quickly turning back to look at Shepard.

Delan had nothing but disgust towards them, "All the good people we lost, and you get left behind. Figures. Screw this." Delan leaves muttering, "I'm done with you Alliance types."

With Delan gone, Ashley couldn't hold herself back from the shock as she confessed to him, "I thought you were dead, Commander." Williams stretched out a hand for the Commander to shake as she continued, "We all did."

* * *

As Williams continued to talk with Shepard, Aran and the other Mandalorians were trying to tend to Garek. "Hold on sir. Rang and the medical droid will be hear any moment. I'm sorry sir, but I'm going to have to open the wound so I can apply this medi-gel so Rang and the others can help you." Beviin pulled out his knife to open the wound so he could apply the gel to the stub of an arm. Garek let out a loud hiss before hissing at the gel as it started to tighten around the wound before the anesthetic could take effect.

Vren nagged but commended Garek at the same time, "Damn foolish to take that thing on alone. Bold, but foolish."

"I forced myself into a mindset that made me attack it…" Unlike before when Garek spoke through his helmet, his voice sounded softer. At this close the clones could plainly see that Garek was indeed a Trandoshan.

Aran asked, "And what mindset was that?"

Garek answered, "To protect…my…hatchlings…" before collapsing out of exhaustion both mental and physical.

After the General fell unconscious, Aran turned to see Williams in a heated discussion with Shepard. "Bev, Aay'han, Vren, Tare. Stay with the General. Radio Dagger for pick up. I want to listen to this." Aay'han nodded as Beviin made contact.

* * *

Aran walked in to hear Shepard trying to explain to Williams, "Not my choice. I spent the last two years in some kind of coma while Cerberus rebuilt me."

Chief Williams took a few steps back as though he had the plague, "You're with Cerberus now? I can't believe the reports were right."

Professor Solus had worked with the Salarian Special Task Group and he knew the Alliance shouldn't know yet whispering at first, "Reports? You already knew?"

Williams explained, "Alliance intel said Cerberus could be behind our missing colonies. We got a tip that this one could be the next to get hit. I went to Anderson, but he wouldn't talk. But there were rumors that you weren't dead. Worse; that you were working for the enemy."

Shepard didn't like it any more than she did as he tried to defend himself, "Cerberus and I want the same thing—to save our colonies. That doesn't mean I answer to them."

She still didn't buy it, "Do you really believe that? Or is that just what Cerberus wants you to think? I wanted to believe that you were alive…I just never expected anything like this. You've turned your back on everything we stood for!"

Aran interrupted this 'heartfelt' meeting, "If you really did believe the rumors Williams, you would have either cuffed him or shot him by now."

With his sudden appearance, it prompted her to ask, "Aran? You too?"

The Mandalorian leader clarified, "We're not here with Shepard. But we were trying to help the colony."

Shepard continued to try and defend himself to his former crewmate, "Ash, you know me. You know I'd only do this for the right reason. You saw it yourself. The Collectors are targeting human colonies. And they're working for the Reapers!"

Ashley still wasn't going to accept it, "I'd like to believe you, Shepard. But I don't trust Cerberus. And it worries me that you do. What did they do to you? What if they're behind it? What if they're the ones working with the Collectors?"

Mordin was trying to show her the error of her logic, "Too hung up on Cerberus. Ignoring the real threat."

Aran bizarrely agreed, "Listen Chief. Normally I'd agree and wipe Cerberus out from the face of the galaxy, but you have to think; why would Cerberus waste resources and abduct entire human colonies if they are trying to prompt human dominance? It doesn't make sense, and I think I have evidence that can prove the Collectors are working for the Reapers."

Shepard also tried to use reason, "You're letting how you feel about their history get in the way of the facts."

Williams countered with her own thought, "Or maybe you feel like you owe Cerberus because they saved you. Maybe it's you. Doesn't matter…I still know where my loyalties lie. I'm an Alliance soldier. It's in my blood. I'm reporting back to the Citadel. I'll let them decide if they believe your story."

Shepard knew he couldn't get Ashley to join him. So as she walked away he said, "So long Ash."

"Goodbye, Shepard. Just…" Williams paused to look back one last time, "try to be careful."

Aran also left but without saying a word. As the gunship with Garrus touched back down Shepard radioed, "Joker—send the shuttle to pick us up. I've had enough of this colony."

* * *

Dagger and Swoop finally returned with passengers no worse for wear. Garrus got off joking with them, "Next time I want to be the one killing something." After a few chucks from Rang, Garrus shoved off, "See you around the galaxy."

Vren was aiding the injured Jedi to the gunship and Aay'han carried the severed arm. Rang didn't even attempt to make a joke as he forced himself not to, "Are you feeling…well, sir? We need to ice that arm if we want to…"

Garek stopped him as he resumed to clutch the arm and walked into the gunship. Beviin waited just outside the gunship as Aran walked over with R4-C3 rolling along next to him. C3 helped herself in, using the jet thrusters to jump in. The little red and blue droid whistled and beeped about her important roll. Aran turned back to watch as the Kodiak shuttle from before fly in. Aran banged the twice against the metal and the bay doors closed, atmospherically shut, Dagger and Swoop flew off returning to the frigate that waited in orbit.

* * *

The hangar was clear, minus the remains of the ARC-170 fighter, as the LAAT pulled in. Once the gunship was firmly on the metal plates the hangar closed and the area depressurized. Rang helped Garek into the Tervho's med bay. As Rang and Garek went up the elevator, Tare'Nara asked Beviin, "Do you think he will be alright?"

Beviin knew what he was, and the stories of Trandoshans and their tenacity but Beviin was genuinely concerned for his former General. "He's in the medical teams hands now." Bev had full confidence in the crew and that was hard to get from the rather cold and blunt clone.

Nyona asked them, "How did that thing sever his arm?"

Aran answered her, "It didn't. The General cut it off himself…with his own lightsaber."

The gunship crew didn't like what was going on. Jak being the first to voice his opinion, "So we sit on our asses while the General bleeds out?"

Beviin corrected him, "No. The bleeding has been stopped before it could get sever. And the blood that had already spilled was removed."

C3 was also worried about Garek as she started to make a low humming sound. Dagger turned to his crew, "Well I don't know about you _vode_, but I'm going to continue working on what I can and let Rang try to help Garek."

Rasen questioned his decision to work, "So you don't want to know the fate of your beloved General?"

"I do, but I can't do anything to help now. I'm a pilot. Not a medic. Like I said, it in Rang's court now." C3 rolled out whistling about if he was sure about it. "No, of course I'm not. You think this is easy for me?" The astromech backed away as though afraid. Dagger loosened his stance as his head lowered, "I'm sorry C3. I know you're just trying to help but…I need something else to occupy my mind right now."

Vren waited for the elevator to return. "Air's too tense here. Anyone else want to punch a few bags around until your friend gets better?" Forta, Aay'han, Tare and Nyona walked toward him in silence as Aran seemed preoccupied with a thought.

Jak, Rook and Swoop joined Dagger to try and help each other as Beviin and Rasen tried to see if Aran needed any help. "Is everything OK, Aran?"

"No, we could have help; instead we just stood there because of the General's orders."

Rasen tried to comfort him, "You don't know that."

"Rasen's right, Aran. That thing was following him the whole time. Something happened and it was able to get close enough to the General to pin him like that. The General wouldn't have removed that arm if he thought there was a chance to save it."

Aran was quiet for a moment before finally pulling his head up, "You're right Bev. How many times now have you logically talked me down now?"

"Five time in this galaxy. About ten back in ours and another eight that you ignored." The two clones laughed it off together.

"Thanks guys. For a moment down there I was starting to doubt myself. I guess I need this little intervention." Aran wrapped his arm around the two, "And I think our pilot needs it too."

* * *

**A/N: **Finished. But now they have their own troubles to deal with. See you soon

**Mando'a Translation: **…Again, nothing. Sorry.


	31. Of Loss and Regret

**A/N: **Announcement: After discussing with a reviewer, I'm going to be rewriting the Revan story to more 'accurate' technology wise and blah blah. Hopefully that endeavor can be finished within a few weeks(or a month, rather have the latter). That doesn't mean I'm stopping here, it just might take longer than normal(whatever normal was).

* * *

Dagger was taking some of the platting from what was left of his ARC-170 and using them to patch up the damage the LAAT had sustained from the large machine that gave chase. As Dagger started to remove the damaged hull plating, Swoop walked up behind his partner, "Dagger." He didn't respond as he grabbed a fusion cutter and started to work. "Dagger, there was nothing we could have done. You know that, I know that." C3 beeped that they wouldn't have stood a chance against the machine if they just hover there. Swoop was never entirely sure what C3 said but he could guess, "She's right you know."

Jak could understand, "That thing would have dug those claws into us and ripped us to bits."

Aran walked in at that point, "Dagger, you're a great pilot. You'd have rushed over in a heartbeat if you could."

Beviin agreed, "You're efficient, and you always have our back. You did what was necessary to keep the others safe. The General even used Aay'han to order us not to interfere when the creature pinned him."

Rook also tried to help the Lt, "Dagger, I use to fight on the frontline before I was transferred over to you. We're nothing but cannon fodder down there. And the Jedi that lead us don't usually look out for guys like us. But Garek is different. He tried to make sure we all make it back to the gunships after an invasion and he never orders us to do something he wouldn't do himself."

Swoop took off his helmet and squatted next to Dagger, "This is about that mission isn't it?" Dagger didn't say a word, but his pause was enough. Swoop turned to Aran and said, "Dagger felt terrible about leaving you guys on that planet two years ago. The General declared him unfit for duty and made sure he was helped before flying again."

Aran looked away, "Was it that bad?"

"It only got worse after we lost Vector and Rev."

Rasen has been with them the longest but she had never seen Aran or Bev dishearten. "Araniik, Beviin. If you guys never came, I'm not sure where we'd be."

"For two years." Dagger got to his feet. "For two years I felt we should have gone out with a bang with you guys. Then not even three months after that mission, Vector and Rev die! Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you guys are alive, but we almost lost the General."

Aran argued, "The General was pinned but he used Aay'han to order us not to interfere. He's a stubborn Jedi if memory serves. He'll be fine in about a month."

Rasen questioned that, "I know Rang and our medics are good but why are you so confidant. They're going to have to give him a prosthetic and…"

Beviin stopped her, "No, the General won't. Rang isn't going to reattached the arm but Garek won't need a prosthetic."

* * *

Up in the training area, Aay'han was having a few rounds against one of the larger punching bags. He removed most of the upper armor during this session, leaving only his gauntlets and gloves. Aay'han accelerated age showed, as he tried to maintain the white highlights in his hair while keeping the strict military buzz cut. He was working up a sweat as he relentlessly assaulted it. Tare had seen Prudii like this when he missed a shot with his sniper rifle or was just pissed about the contract. Tare use to talk to Prudii, or rather he did all of the talking while Prudii listened. Tare wasn't sure about Aay'han but Tare thought he couldn't be too different from Beviin or Araniik. "Hello um, Aay'han…" The clone didn't respond as he continued his punches. "I…I'm sorry if I'm disturbing you but I guess I'm just use to being able to talk with Prudii when he was doing this."

Aay'han gave one final punch to before grabbing the bag. "_Ibac kaabe copyc_." Aay'han grabbed a towel and started to pat off the sweat on his face. Aay'han took a seat at one of the nearby benches, motioning the quarian to sit with him, "_Me'copaani jorhaa'i par_?"

After taking a seat, Tare slightly surprised when he rather skillfully spoke Mando'a, "_Pirusti, nu'amycla Prudii sushi bah ni_."

Aay'han simply smiled as he relaxed a bit, "_Ibac shi troch kaysh_." The clone started to speak in basic again, "He must really like you kid."

"Why would you say that?"

Vren was working out against another punching bag and was listening to the conversation, "Because he's willing to listen to you. I've seen a few of your 'talks'. He gives some input but he mostly just listens. I think he sees you as his _ad'ika_. But then again, that's just what I see."

Aay'han seemed to be reminiscing as he said, "Besides myself, the others in Sigma Squad or Dagger's gunship crew, not many knew Prudii. I think the big guys right. Prudii was a bit of a wild child during training. Eventually Vhonte turned that energy of his into focus. Back on Kamino, when I first met the squad, Prudii normally didn't talk unless he needed to, but if anyone ever made a hint about hurting one of his squadmates, Prudii would usually be the first wall they had to get through." Aay'han soon realized that he had dominated the conversation, "Sorry, you were the one who wanted to talk."

The young quarian shook his head, "No, that was very insightful, thank you. The next time I see him, I'll remember to thank him even more so. As for why I wanted to talk to you before, it's about the Jedi, Garek. I don't think they'll be able to reattach the arm, if they haven't already. I've heard the tales from Sigma Squad but to lose an arm must be a setback."

Vren was also interesting in hearing what the clone had to say as he stopped the bag from moving so he could hear clearly. The former advisor answered, "No need to worry about him. The General is a tough ma…I mean Jedi. And I have no doubt Rang will do everything to get him back on his feet."

* * *

The med bay was busier than usual, as the Jedi was restrained to the bed, by his request. Rang and Silis were in control as they directed the others and Rang made sure not to have too many people around at once, "Now be careful putting on the new bandages. He may not have an arm but I hear Jedi can use the Force anyway." Palva slowly undid the old bandages from around the amputated arm.

As Palva did so Garek continued to scream every so often from a pain the others could not understand. When the medic unveiled the amputated arm, he was in shock. What was reported to have been a flat cut now had a stubble of a hand and the muscles were now completely covered by scales. "What th—Rang!"

Pyth turned to see. "Oh that. Trandoshan physiology, they can regrow a lost limb but after they reach their middle age, usually 54 in galactic standard years, they lose that ability. Trandoshans, being reptiles, are still able to recover from injuries faster than most sentients."

Palva had a crossed look on her face, "Don't you think we'd need to know that?"

Pyth turned to Rang, "Haven't you told them about Trandoshans? I have heard of tales of commandos taking on Trandoshan forces. Don't you know about this?"

Rang answered, "Well I've heard but why would I mention that? I didn't know the General was a Trando." Rang was set with syringe in hand, "Alright, keep that arm steady and point it away from anything breakable. Especially me." Palva grabbed the arm by the shoulder as Rang used the syringe to inject the bacta into the Trandoshan's left arm.

Palva asked him, "Why not just use medi-gel? Wouldn't that have been better?"

Rang was quickly and carefully returning the syringe so no one could get hurt from it. "Cause, about a day ago he was probably using bacta to patch up any serious injuries. Yeah, medi-gels, I'll begrudgingly admit, has many benefits over bacta but our bodies are use to it more so. Hell, the four of us, and every other clone commando, have bacta processing implants, which is somewhere in our heads or back I forget which, that let us process bacta faster and better than most. Also because of a rule they drilled into us; Rule 39: Never say no to bacta. I also added a bit of a sedative in hopes that it could calm the General down just a tad."

Palva finally let go of the arm, "And how is that better than medi-gel?"

The sedatives were working, as Garek finally stopped screaming but was still tearing into the bed with his good hand. "Because…that paste feels funny…"

Palva looked at the sedatives Rang had used. "Rang, with this amount, he shouldn't even be conscious!"

Pyth answered, "But necessary. Jedi connection to the Force provides resistance to standard sedatives methods. These levels should prove to be capable of working."

Rang had moved to Garek's side, "So, how are you feeling, sir?"

Garek took a deep breath before speaking. "I need to correct you about two things."

"And these things are about you right?"

Garek didn't seem to have the strength to give Rang a scowl. "My name is not Garek."

"Kinda figured after you took off your helmet."

Palva then asked, "Then what is your name, if Garek is not it."

"My name is Lissarkh. And the second, I'm a female." Lissarkh then turned her face towards the pillow and started to close her eyes.

Palva looked at Lissarkh, "You're a female?"

Lissarkh answered, "Obviously, you're a reptilian too. Can't you smell the pheromones? I knew you're female the first time I smelled you."

Pyth made notes, "Interesting, with the advancement of ranged weaponry turians must have lost the need of olfactory in exchange for heighted sight."

Rang was rubbing the back of his head, "OK, now that last one was unexpected. But…uh, sir, I thought Jedi training would help suppress pains and stuff."

Lissarkh hissed slightly, "Only partly. We Trandoshans can regrow our limbs but the pain is like going through seven hells. Depending on the individual, this process could take days or years. I lost a limb once and that took about a month with minimal medical assistance. I have learned more Force techniques to help accelerate the process. It should take a week or so."

Rang added his own thought, "That should give us enough time to get use to calling you ma'am instead of sir and get used to seeing you as a Trando."

Palva was one of the few that didn't listen to Sigma Squad's war stories. "Why is that going to be hard?"

Rang shook his head, "Oh Palva, Palva, Palva. If only you listened to our tales."

Pyth intervened, "Trandoshans are a warrior races that excel in hunting. The Trandoshans share their home system with another species called Wookiees."

"The two meter tall carpets."

Pyth continued on as if Rang never interrupted, "The Trandoshan people are very spiritual, if they stay true to their doctrines I mean. Otherwise most Trandoshans use their people's belief in a goddess, who judges their place in the afterlife by the number of points cumulated in that lifetime, to hunt or kill. They especially value Wookiees, believing they would give them the most Jagannath point."

Rang then told them, "We've had reports from Delta Squad about the Trandos taking over a Republic assault cruiser. Bev and I never fought them but the others have, well I don't know about the advisor or Dagger but after we left there's a good chance. I wonder how Prudii is going to take this news."

* * *

**Around the same time…**

Prudii and Myr'Jorin had regrouped with some of the quarian marines that survived the initial geth attack. As they reached the base site, the group witnessed a small group of geth enter the doorway. Myr turned to Prudii with assault rifle in hand, "Come on, we have to help the others."

Prudii turned to look behind, "What about the rear? Geth can deploy anywhere."

One of the other marines readied an M-9 Tempest submachine gun, "My team will keep the geth at bay. Let's go marines." The marine and a group of four kept to the shadows and prepared for geth to return.

Another of the marines still with Prudii noted, "Some of the science team is still inside. We have to hurry."

Prudii had both recon droids active as he used them both to scout the area for any other geth. Three of the marines took cover behind the barriers as the other entered. As the small room decontaminated them Prudii grabbed both of his droids and returned them back into his pack and readied his DC-17m. Inside there were two quarians with a table knocked over to use as cover. The geth from before had also taken a position on a slightly elevated level. Two of the troopers was guarding while the other was attempting to unlock the door. Prudii saw the shimmer of a geth hunter as he saw the light move. Prudii started to fire at the geth troopers first along with Myr and the others, but Prudii jumped onto the geth hunter and started to rip out what tubes and metal plating he could before striking it with his knuckle vibroblades. Myr continued to keep the troopers at bay while Prudii eliminated that threat. The hunter fell at the foot of the ramp and Prudii took cover below the geth. The geth were able to get the door unlocked as another geth trooper along with a destroyer appeared. Myr yelled at Prudii, "Go, keep Tali'Zorah and the data safe!"

"Not letting you die here!" Prudii took down one of the geth trooper's shield letting the quarians bring it down.

"We'll be fine. Go." Prudii ignored Myr and continued to fight. But from his position he wasn't going to be of much help. One of the quarian was trying to get a few shots off from what had become a dining table, but Prudii tried to discourage him. Unfortunately, the marine didn't adhere to his warning as he whittled away at the destroyer's the geth focused their assault on him, quickly downing his shields and tearing into his enviro-suit.

The other quarian said, "If you're going to go, now would be the best time. I'm going to seal that door and make sure the geth can't follow."

Myr was giving more cover fire, "Go. The mission takes priority."

Prudii knew all too well about that feeling and nodded. "We have to find Tali!" Four quarians quickly ran to the door behind Prudii. Once through Prudii made sure the others were in as he looked back into the room and watched as Myr tried to keep the geth at the small plateau. Prudii swapped the DC-17m's assault rifle components for the sniper rifle and made a clean shot into a geth trooper's eye before the door closed. Prudii could still hear weapons fire but he could only hope that Myr could keep it up until reinforcements could arrive. Prudii switched his DC back to its assault rifle settings and took point, "Come on. Almost there."

Prudii had four marines still with him as they traveled down to the opened field. Prudii activated his recon droids again, having to keep the fact that they are both artificial intelligences, to keep an eye out for any geth that might be waiting for victims. With the recon droids, Prudii safely guided them to the other side, rendezvousing with Kal'Reegar, a team of marines and Tali. Tali saw Prudii and grabbed him in a hug, "Prudii." She quickly released him as she cleared her throat, "Ahem. Is there anyone else? I don't see Myr."

Prudii's blue-lit T looked down in disgrace, "Zen volunteered his team to try and hold the geth off further back. Myr and Roa stayed behind at base camp to keep the geth from following."

Reegar slapped Prudii's shoulder, "That's what their trained to do."

"Waste their live." Reegar was faceplate to faceplate with Prudii now as the sound of a geth dropship started to ring out overhead. Prudii turned to Tali, "We better get that data." Prudii then faced Reegar again, "And it better be worth it."

Kal started to bark orders, "You," poking the commando, "get Tali to the shelter. Marines, we're going geth hunting."

All of the marines left with Kal, leaving Tali and Prudii to reach the shelter together. Prudii looked around at the three bridges. "Safest one I see is the high way. Fastest, down the middle. We'll lose shields but shouldn't be a problem if we can get inside fast enough."

"Prudii…" The commando wasn't one for talking, and he was never good at expressing his emotions with those he cared for. "Prudii are you alright? Do you…do you want to talk?"

The black Katarn armor stopped, "We can talk when we're in the shelter." Tali started to walk close behind the clone as he moved straight through. He stopped at the bridge and waited for Tali. "Ready to run across?" Tali turned to face his helmet and nodded. Prudii was fast but he paced himself to take most of the sunlight as it started to drain his shields.

Tali noticed the act, as her shields didn't weaken much, and once across she told him, "You didn't have to do that you know."

"What?" Prudii was very bad at lying to her.

"Protect me like that. Like you did on the Citadel."

Prudii reminded her about the talk they had back then, "My choice, remember?"

Tali was waiting for Prudii's shields to recharge so she asked his opinion, "Do you think Reegar and the others will be alright?"

Prudii seemed like he didn't want to give her his honest opinion but he still gave her one, "I think Reegar might be able to pull it off. But the geth are ruthless, and have numbers. Should have convinced more _vode_ to come. Shields back."

The pair reached the door without any resistance, and Prudii didn't like it. The commando barrowed Tali's shotgun as he leaned against the wall, ready to open the door. The door opened to three geth as they attempted to get to the data. The geth destroyer was literally behind the door and Prudii put the shotgun against the clanker's back, firing. The geth troopers turned and opened fire at the doorway. Prudii handed Tali back her shotgun as he grabbed his bowcaster. The clone was charging the shot as a bright green glow started to emanate from the weapon's barrel. The moment the geth had to reload Prudii peered in and launched the charged quarrel. Most of the energy was used to break though the shield but the metal quarrel still had a charge that broke through part of the geth's armored body and pinned it to the computer behind it. Tali also joined and tossed a tech mine at the last geth. The Overload tech did its job, bringing down the geth's shields and overheating its weapon. Prudii rushed in with both knuckle vibroblades extended and he started to gut the machine like an animal for display in a butcher shop. The black armor was covered in splatters of white synthetic goo. Prudii was trying to clean it all off as Tali chucked silently. Prudii gave her a questionable look. She replied, "It's nothing, I was just remembering the time we had on the Citadel."

"I'm sure Rang might try to make a joke here."

Tali quickly moved to the terminal at the end of the room. "Hold on, I'm going to lock the door so the geth can't get in."

Prudii was looking out, "Good, dropship coming around. Very bad position." After the door was closed Prudii removed the quarrel that was lodged into the geth trooper. Prudii nervously asked, "So…you and…Reegar are…"

Tali was blushing at the notion but her mask hid that. Tali promptly responded before Prudii could finish, "No! I mean…no, we've worked a few operations together. It's nothing serious."

"I see." Prudii cleaned off the metal quarrel and put it into one of the bandolier's pouches. Prudii whispered to himself, "_Ni gar cabur. Ni gar beskar'gam. Beskar'ade ven draar tigaanu gar, ne'vaal ni oyacyi_."

* * *

**A/N: **One more chapter of character development and I can focus more on Shepards group for a while.

**Mando'a Translation: **I'm just going to translate as how the sentences are supose to be(only because a few words don't translate exactly.)

Ibac kaabe copyc.(ee-BAK kahb-ay KOH-peesh)- That sounds appelling

Me'copaani jorhaa'i par?(Meh ko-PAH-nee joh-har-EE pahr)- What do you want to talk about?

Pirusti, nu'amycla Prudii sushi bah ni.(peer-OO-stee, noo-AHM-eesh-lah proo-DEE SOO-shee bah nee)- Well, normally Prudii listened to me.

Ibac shi troch kaysh.(ee-BAK shee troch kaysh)- That's just like him.

ad'ika(ah-DEE-kah)- little one, son, daughter, of any age - also used informally to adults much like "lads" or "guys"

Ni gar cabur.(nee gahr KAH-boor)- I am your protector.

Ni gar beskar'gam.(nee gahr BES-kar-GAM)- I am your armor.

Beskar'ade ven draar tigaanu gar, ne'vaal ni oyacyi.(BES-kar-AHD-ay vehn drahr tee-GAH-noo gahr, NAY-vahl nee oy-YAH-shee)- These droids will never touch you, not while I live.


	32. A Tale of Two Crews

**A/N: **Sorry another screw up from massediting my story(no that was not a joke, I litterally mean exporting all chapter at the time and fixing a few inconsistances or something I, or one of you readers, spotted). Anyway, the real Chapter 32 is back.

* * *

After a few minutes to cool heads and burn off the steam, the eight clones gathered around the dining area as Rang told them the latest news on their incapacitated Jedi, "…so other than the arm, how was the planet?' I asked." The others weren't amused, "Geez, just trying to lighten the mood. So, who's going to break the news to ol' moody about the General being a lizard."

Aran seemed to have a hard time with it, "The General, one of those lizards. Weren't there any signs you saw advisor?"

Aay'han shook his head, "None. The only thing that might have tipped anyone off was how well versed in Trandoshan tactics, traps and emplacements. But the General was always a good tactician so we just shrugged it off thinking h…she probably faced against them during hi…her time before the war."

Rook wanted confirmation, "Are you sure the General's female? The scales don't have much to differentiate the two."

Rang had brought Palva and Pyth over to help him out. Pyth was the first to explain, "Pheromone levels were clearly female and her psychological profile matches that of a mother protecting her nest."

Jak stopped her before she became unstoppable, "Wait, pheromone levels, psychological profile? Since when have you been able to do that professor?"

The former professor explained, "My species are decedents of cave dwellers and developed into a warrior society. Other than our ability to see in low lighting, our olfactories had to allow us to find mates in those dark caverns and, being reptilian ourselves, don't have any physical difference between a male or female. Also, I minored in xenopsychology during my study of xenolinguistics."

Palva steeped in, "I also did a scan of your friend after we gave her new bandages. She has an ovary system."

Rang commented, "You know, now that I'm thinking about it, her snout seemed a bit narrower than the Trando faces I've seen. But hey, I haven't seen one up close, I've only seen holos."

Araniik was starting to rub the scar he got from his scuffle with Prudii and a group of Trandoshans back in a Coruscant ally. It was hidden from view by his shirt. "I think we can overlook the female part about the General. We're going to have a hard time overlooking that of her species past."

Beviin then spoke out, "I think she did that for our benefit, sir." Beviin didn't wait for Araniik or Aay'han to ask, "I don't know if she planned this after being assigned to us or before when news about Geonosis spread across the galaxy. Either through preparation or just blind luck, she knew we'd be fighting her people so she created the 'Garek' persona so we could continue our job without feeling bad about anything. Other than certain orders, I mean."

The sound of the medbay's doors opening echoed the halls, "You were always the level headed one." Lissarkh had walked out, holding her arm around the slice, trying not to crush the regrowing limb. "I did know clans would do whatever they could if it let them hunt Wookiees. At first I was going to leave the Order and not participate in the war. I had planned on infiltrating the clans and sabotage them from within. It was only after I consulted with my former master that I manifested the 'General' that would guide you and your 'brothers'." Lissarkh didn't seem or sound as fatigued as before but they could visibly see the strain on her.

Palva, being a medic, tried to get her back, "You're still not ready to walk about. I'm getting you back to the medbay."

"No," Lissarkh pushed her aside, "I need to tell them why I did what I did." She still had the undersuit on from her armor as she stood in front of the table. "I encountered your 'father' before any of you were created." The clones had mixed reaction to that news, some were shocked, while others were intrigued. "It happened soon after the end of the Stark Hyperspace War. My master, Plo Koon, witnessed the death of his former master, a Wookiee named Tyvokka."

"Wait a minute, a Wookiee Jedi! Now that's overkill."

Lissarkh ignored Rang's interruption, "I had meet Master Tyvokka a few times before, and despite our species' past, he thought I would make a great Jedi one day. I think he had hoped we could help find a way for both of our peoples to find peace. The death was devastating and I thought my master would want time alone, as I did, so I asked to accompany another master for a time, a Jedi that I knew though Plo Koon, Master Dooku."

Aay'han asked, "You mean Count Dooku, right?"

Lissarkh nodded, "Yes, but this was before he became a Sith, before he left the Order. Dooku and a group of Jedi were assigned a mission to Galidraan; a group of Mandalorians were, as the governor claimed, murdering 'political activists' as well as slaughtering women and children. I was not officially assigned the mission so Dooku said I was to merely observe. It was long after the event transpired did the truth come out, but it was far too late. We found the dead as the Governor had claimed and Dooku confronted the Mandalorians at their campsite. As Dooku told them to surrender, Jango flew in ordering the Mandalorians to open fire. The fight ended with Jango Fett as the only recorded surviving Mandalorian. Eleven out of the task force of twenty died that day, Jango killing six before finally surrendering. His last kill was a man that used sai tok against a Mandalorian Jango called Myles; sai tok is a technique that slices an opponent in half." Knowing full well the clones have seen Jedi use the technique before. "This mission would also be Dooku's last as a Jedi."

Araniik caught the Jedi's wording, "'Recorded survivor'. Were there more?"

Lissarkh did not look as though she wanted to talk about it but she took a deep breath before she replied to Aran, "Only one other from this group. He was a young Mandalorian. I was scouring the battlefield after Jango surrendered and the Jedi had left. I happened upon him as another dead Mandalorian laid on him, burying him into the snow. I was not sure why but something was telling me the situation was wrong altogether, whether it was the Force or my instincts I still do not know. I made a deal with the Mandalorian to help get him offworld. He reluctantly agreed to my terms."

Aay'han didn't like the sound of that, "And what exactly, were the terms?"

Lissarkh closed her eyes, "He would give me his armor." The others seemed almost appalled, "At the time I had no knowledge of Mandalorians or their ways. I had learned from him that Jango believed that the Governor of Galidraan was sheltering members of the Death Watch, a splinter group of Mandalorians. He was using a job the Governor had given them as a cover to investigate. The job was to kill off a group of protestors who were more than vocal about it his rule. Upon returning to the Temple, I studied the Mandalorians and their culture, and I have regretted my actions. In the end though, I helped him find a new life. What he did with it was his choice." Lissarkh was looking directly at Araniik now, "Now you see why I call you as you truly are, Mandalore. I can claim no such honor nor can I simple cast aside my Jedi training to join your culture." As Lissarkh walked back to the medbay she told them, "So tell me, Mandalorians, was it right for Jedi to lead an army of slave warriors to fight machines in a struggle that had ample opportunities to end with peace?"

After Lissarkh left, Pyth made another of her analytical comments. "Even for a Jedi, she seems to be more akin to the truly spiritual Trandoshans who genuinely follow the ways of the Scorekeeper." Palva left after Lissarkh, making sure she returned to the bed in the medbay.

Aran soon turned to Aay'han, "Advisor…Aay'han. I want you to have my kama."

Aay'han was hesitant to accept, "A…Are you sure?"

Rang turned to his former advisor, "Look, I promise, I won't make jokes about it and you."

"It's not that, hell I'd miss it if you didn't." That put a big grin on Rang, as he put Araniik through hell for wearing it at first. Aay'han saw the look on Aran's face and knew there was no force in the universe that can stop it, even the Force, "Alright, I'll accept the gift, but you're still the leader around here."

"Never said I wasn't. Now you're officially an ARC trooper, not just a commander." Aran got up from the table, "Well, what are we waiting for Mandalorians? There are jobs out there that need doing. Let's found ourselves a contract to keep our minds occupied until Prudii returns and the General's back on his…I mean her, feet."

* * *

Shepard had a 'pleasant' time speaking with the Illusive Man, especially after using his former crew member as bait for the Collectors or letting the Alliance and the Citadel Council believe that, even though he does so begrudgingly, was working for the human centric organization, Cerberus. Reviewing the new dossiers the Illusive Man sent, Shepard saw Tali on the list. He didn't know what kind of trouble would entail, but the Commander was going to try and save his friend if she was in trouble. Reaching the system, Shepard had Garrus join because of the history between the three of them and brought along Kasumi for her knack of finding things, whether it's what they were after or not.

As the shuttle brought the team planet side, EDI warned them, "Shepard, our data indicates that Tali is somewhere in these ruins. There is considerable geth activity, and an environmental hazard. Solar output has overwhelmed Haestrom's protective magnetosphere. Exposure to direct sunlight will damage your shields."

As Shepard and his team started to travel past the first opening with sunlight, their shields started to strain. Garrus was the first to comment, "I'm having serious issues with my shields."

Kasumi was also feeling the heat, "And I'm wearing black. Can we get in the shade, please?"

Shepard encountered a barrier. There was no visible means of unlocking the gate but the Commander noticed a small booth nearby. Inside was a dead quarian along with a destroyed geth destroyer. The quarian was leaning against a log that started to play when Shepard approached it, "The geth are here. I've stayed to buy the others time. Anyone gets this, find Tali'Zorah. She and that data are all that matters. Keelah se'lai." The message continued to repeat itself, the last recording the brave marine was able to record before his death. Shepard found the controls to the gate and opened it.

As they carefully moved past the gate, the roar from a geth dropship started to get louder and louder. Garrus was the one to first see it, "Incoming dropship!" The dropship made a fast flyby, deployed four standard geth troopers. Unlike the darker geth troopers that Shepard had encountered before, these geth were white like their shock troopers. Everyone took cover behind the closest cover as Garrus and Kasumi tossed Overload tech attacks at the first two geth, bringing down their shields and giving Shepard time to gun the first one down, as Kasumi and Garrus tag-teamed the second. The other two geth took cover behind some of the rubble that covered the planet. Now behind cover, Shepard activated Squad Disruptor Ammo making the squad more efficient at taking down the synthetics. Kasumi disappeared saying her little taunt, "Now you see me…" The thief reappeared and quickly struck one of the geth in the back, sending it out into the open. The shields were depleted and Garrus took the opportunity to shut it down. The last geth, now running on 'instincts', stared to open fire at Kasumi, only for her to disappear beforehand. In the open Shepard finished it off.

Moving past the geth, Shepard took cover behind a wall and Garrus took position on the opposite side. Garrus looked out and saw the sunlight was covering a fairly wide expanse and covering from the sun would only leave them open for a flanking. "We should find an alternate path. We're roasting out here." Garrus saw the gate at the other end of the valley open. "Incoming!" Garrus and Shepard both switched up assault rifles for their sniper rifles. Shepard had the M-92 Mantis while Garrus was using the M-29 Incisor. Shepard activated Squad Disruptor Ammo again as the two friends in arms found their targets. The first wave was a red geth with a missile launcher along with a geth trooper.

* * *

Back at the observatory, Prudii was listening to the radio chatter from the quarian marines as the geth continued to try and slice open the door as Tali was finishing gathering the data. Prudii keep most of the comments confined within his own helmet, knowing how dire the situation was he didn't want to tell Tali the truth. "Feel like a nerf in a gurrcat lair." Prudii ran through several possible scenarios in his mind, most of them ending with his and Tali's death. The only real chance they had to survive was if the quarian marines and Reegar could possible send the geth packing. Prudii knew the idea was slim, given that the quarians, minus Tali, Tare, and Rasen, haven't engaged against the geth in over three centuries. The quarians haven't changed much, only weakening their immune systems by living in ships, and the geth had access to all of the data from the Geth War.

Tali continued her work on the console at the end of the observatory as she asked, "How is it, Prudii? Are the marines doing alright?"

Prudii could hear some of the quarians as they died but he wasn't willing to tell her. He lied, "They're doing fine. The geth had them pinned a few times, but Reegar got them out of it. Geth still trying to break in. Can't beat your lock."

Tali smiled for a moment at the complement but she still couldn't help but worry for the others. "I hope Kal and the others survive."

Prudii commented to himself again to let it out, "Probably willing to die trying to get you out of here." Prudii reactivated the speaker again and turned to look to Tali, "He'll find a way."

* * *

After they had their full of sniping, Shepard, Garrus and Kasumi used a nearby walkway to avoid most of the sunlight. They had to engage a few geth that were waiting but they were easily dealt with. Along the way though, Shepard couldn't help but notice the two dead quarians below. He found a weapon's upgrade component for heavy pistols but he was hoping Tali was safe. As the squad made their way down they heard the sounds of geth pulse rifles firing. A new geth variant, a geth hunter, was down and the optical camouflage was malfunctioning. A pair of geth troopers were unloading at something but from Shepard's position he couldn't see it. Kasumi took cover next to Shepard and Garrus quietly moved to a nearby slab. With a nod, Garrus and Kasumi both tossed Overload tech, almost destroying both geth from the attack. Shepard finished them with a few good shots from the Vindicator. After making sure the geth were disabled, Shepard found a few salvageable components from the hunter, and Kasumi found an M-9 Tempest on a dead quarian.

On another nearby quarian body, laid a radio and a voice that was trying to make contact. "Break-break-break. OP-1, this is Squad Leader Kal'Reegar, do you copy? The geth sent a dropship towards OP-2. Tali'Zorah's secure, but we need backup. We're bunkered up here. Can you send support? OP-1, this is Squad Leader Kal'Reegar, come in, over!"

Shepard picked up the radio. He didn't want to report to the quarian about all of the dead he had seen so instead he said, "This is Commander Shepard of the Normandy. Can we provide assistance?"

This Kal'Reegar was more than happy to hear someone's voice, but he could assume the worse, "Patch your radio into Channel 617 Theta." Kasumi and Garrus adjusted their earpieces and signaled Shepard. Shepard used his omni-tool to set the channel. The quarian continued, "We were on a stealth mission. High risk. We found what we were after, but the geth found us. They've got us pinned down. Can't get to our ship, can't transmit data through the solar radiation."

Shepard asked for a status report, "What's the status of your team? How many of you are left?"

The squad leader replied, "We were a small squad. Dozen marines plus the science team and an extra pair of hands. We're down to half-strength now. Made the synthetic bastards pay for it, though."

Tali never did tell Shepard why she had to come here, so he asked Kal'Reegar if he knew, "What brought you this deep into geth-controlled space?"

The marine responded, "You're asking the wrong person, Shepard. I just point and shoot. Something about the sun. It's going bad faster than it should. Some kind of energy problem."

Shepard then asked him, "Any idea where the geth came from?"

"One of their patrol ships found us. Dropships started raining geth down on our heads before we could get off-world. System's under geth control. We knew they made planetary sweeps periodically. We'd hoped going low-emissions would hide us."

Shepard tried to assess if there was a threat of more geth, "Do we have to worry about the geth sending in reinforcements?"

Reegar wasn't sure but, "I don't think so. Their patrol ship hasn't lifted off again, and the radiation blocks all offworld communication."

Shepard asked the marine up front, "How are you holding up? We can be there in a few minutes."

Reegar warned them, if they already didn't know, "Take it slow and careful. Direct sunlight fries your shields all to hell. We're bunkered down at base camp across the valley." Shepard looked on as three quarians were defending the entrance from the geth. "I left Tali'Zorah at a secure shelter, then doubled back to hold the chokepoint. Getting Tali out safely is our top priority. If you can extract her, we'll keep them off you."

Shepard was trying to make sure his friend was safe. "You've got confirmation that the geth haven't reached Tali yet?"

Reegar was confidant, "Affirmative. Left our best man with her, a Mandalorian. When you get here, you can talk to her on the comm. Every marine, and that merc, on this rock are sworn to protect Tali'Zorah. Long as one of us is still drawing air, she'll be safe."

Shepard wanted to know if it was one of the original four or another, "Who's the Mandalorian?"

Reegar quickly answered, "What, Prudii? I've only heard the stories about how those four helped back on the Fleet. After meeting him I don't like him, but he's willing to die doing his job. I respect him for that. Doesn't mean I want him here. Besides, I heard of this one human saying, 'always keep an ace up your sleeve'."

Shepard questioned the quarians and their willingness to die, "You're going to throw your life away for research?"

Reegar corrected him, "Negative. I'm going to give my life for the Migrant Fleet. All the difference in the world. I'm no tech expert, Shepard. I'm a marine. They tell me to shoot, I shoot. They said to protect Tali and the data. If you get them out safe, I've done my job."

Shepard didn't like that mentality but he wanted to save as many quarians as he could, "Hold position. We'll hit their back ranks."

Reegar stopped him, "Wait! Watch your ass! We've got a dropship coming in!" The sound of the geth dropship got louder and louder until finally it was visibly flying overhead. The dropship launched a large ball of energy that took out the quarian's defending the base camp entrance. Shepard saw the large stone pillar above the entrance starting to lease. He signaled his team to huff it but it was too late, as the pillar crushed down and blocked the entrance. Reegar could hear the situation, "Crap. Doorway's blocked! Grab the demo charges in the buildings nearby! Use them to clear a path! They're coming in through the side! I've got to fall back!"

EDI reported to the Commander on another channel, "Shepard, I have scanned the area and located the demolition charges the quarian commander mentioned."

Shepard told the A.I., "Put it on my radar."

EDI quickly finished the task, "Done. You will need both sets of charges to clear the rubble."

* * *

**A/N: **Sorry for any confusions anyone might of had recently.


	33. Stranger Times

**A/N: **Hello peoples of intrests, I'm skipping the formalities this time.

* * *

Prudii had heard Reegar's conversation with Shepard, and the commando had mixed feelings. He knew that Shepard would probably be able to handle the geth outside, but it's the Cerberus element behind him that was discouraging Prudii. He wanted to tell Tali, but she too had mixed feelings but at least her hate was focused towards Cerberus and not Shepard. Prudii also didn't want to tell her because of how she reacted towards him, jealousy, yet another emotion Prudii had been able to shove into a jar until he met Tali. Prudii had grabbed a thermal detonator from his pack and was ready to prim it, as a last resort.

* * *

Shepard's squad had finished off a geth Hunter and a pair of troopers that had accompanied it. They've been under heavy assault as they neared one of the charges. Several geth troopers were holding position near it and they weren't letting them though. Garrus and Shepard were able to take down four of the geth, but they continued to come from an upper level. Now a Hunter was starting to come closer. Kasumi shouted, "Going dark!" before reappearing behind one of the furthest geth and bashing it from behind. Kasumi's strike destroyed the geth and she couldn't restrain herself as she laughed out loud, "Ha-ha!"

Garrus used the distraction Kasumi created to toss another Overload tech. The geth were clustered enough that the tech was able to bring down two of the geth. Garrus was in the zone, "Two less to worry about!"

Shepard was focusing on the Hunter, as Garrus' Overload had caused a system's failure that forced the geth out of stealth. The geth was tough but after several rounds were put into it the hunter fell. Kasumi and Garrus tag-teamed one geth as Shepard finished the last one.

As they looked around, Shepard found the charge alongside a journal. Shepard played the recording, it was Tali who made it, "We need a core same to get a timeline on the rate of radiation increase, but our equipment keeps dying on us. Shepard once used a mining laser to clear some rubble back on Therum. Maybe I can do something similar with demolition charges."

_That explains why they have the charges._

As they tried to leave the geth dropship made another flyby, dropping three geth: a pair of troopers and a Prime. Unlike the Primes Shepard fought against in the past, this Prime's abdomen and shoulder guards were dark blue instead of pure white and it was armed with an M-76 Revenant Light Machine Gun. One could only guess where the geth were able to acquire it, it just made the thing deadlier. Like previous Primes however, this one still stood an impressive twelve feet up and it wasn't willing to wait. The Prime fired off a smaller version of the siege pulse used by geth armatures and dropships. Everyone quickly took to cover before the blast made contact. The troopers took cover behind the same stone slabs they were using not too long ago as the Prime continued to fire at Shepard while marching towards his position. Kasumi and Garrus tossed Overloads to bring down the shields but it was tough. Shepard used this opportunity to rip into the Prime, now that the Revenant was overheated. But the Prime wasn't out of weapons yet, the geth deployed a combat drone, but Garrus quickly dispatched with that, while Kasumi started to focus on the geth troopers just outside the enclosed garage. As Kasumi took down one of the geth troopers, another pair of troopers started to travel from around a corner.

* * *

Prudii was starting to beat himself up now as he heard quarians screaming in pain dying. He punched one of the defunct geth leaving an impression of his fist. Tali paused to look after hearing the crushing metal. "Prudii?"

"I should be out there. On the other side of this door at least. Then I'd be of better use."

Tali disagreed, "If you were out there, I wouldn't know that you were safe…but I…I should've had the data ready to go. We could already be off Haestrom by now."

Prudii tried comforting her, "Your people haven't seen this world in centuries. Can't blame you if you want to explore a little. Find your past. We tried reconnecting to our Mandalorian bloodline, why can't you be allowed time to walk on one of your colonies? Fine architecture, quarians seem to always have been brilliant engineers." Prudii was trying to give a complement but from Tali's reaction the message seemed to have been muffled a bit. Prudii pulled out both of his recon droids and gave them orders, "Stay with Tali'Zorah, no matter what happens. Protect her with your lives." The two droids beep in the affirmative and floated over to Tali.

Tali heard the droids as they hovered over to her. She saw the metal balls as they beeped and hovered above her head. Tali turned to Prudii, "Are these combat drones?"

"Sort of. Recon droids. Minimal armaments but smaller. Harder to shot down. Good enough to grant you time to take cover…after I get overwhelmed." Prudii was now regretting not taking Dagger up on the offer to bring the gunship along. The firepower would come in handy right about now.

* * *

Now that things have started to settle down once more on the Tervho, Rang was checking the account the Mandalorians use for contracts. Rang found one that was interesting, "Hey boss man, we got a message from the Migrant Fleet," Tare turned to listen, "Specifically from our good ol' friend, captain Mal. He sends his regards to us, hopes were doing fine as well as Ras and all that brother-love stuff. He says he doesn't want to be a bother but the Cyniad, she's missing, again. Her last know coordinates was in the Hades Nexus cluster."

Tare had searched to find the Hades Nexus on the galaxy map. After finding it, Tare saw and interrupted, "That's dangerously close to the Perseus Veil."

Rang continued to read the letter, "He doesn't care so much about the ship, he's more concerned about the crew manning her and getting them all home. Well, he doesn't word it like that, that's just what I see. In any case, Captain Mal doesn't have the recourses to check immediately, especially with trying to find a new homeworld for the rest of the quarians. Let's see, the one in charge should be one Lieutenant Commander Gorlat, he sounds like a crackerjack guy."

Aran didn't need time to think about it, "Kix, Bev, we're heading to the Hades Nexus cluster. Palva, Rang, get a medical team ready for the quarian crew; hope for the best, expect the worst. We'll figure out the rest of the roster after we find where the Cyniad is." The crew move like clockwork, prepping the Tervho to hit the Mass Relay.

* * *

Shepard and team had fought a squad of geth along with a reformatted version of the Destroyer. With the second charge in hand, Shepard returned out to see the geth dropship launching more troopers. They had placed a pair of rocket troopers on the upper walkway, as a Destroyer started to move closer with support from four other troopers.

Garrus couldn't help but joke with Shepard, "This almost feels like old times." Garrus was focused on the rocket troops above, while Kasumi and Shepard turned their attention to the rest. The destroyer pushed forward through the sun, losing shield integrity in the process. Kasumi waited until most of the shield was at about twenty-five percent strength firing a few rounds to finish it off. With the shield gone Kasumi quickly tossed an Overload tech attack at the giant and rushed back to cover before the geth's fuel tanks exploded. The troopers and the rocket geth were keeping the squad pinned down. Garrus made a suggestion, "We're going to get slaughtered if we stay here."

"There has to be a way up to that walkway." Shepard saw an open doorway to their flank. "Kasumi, go on through. We'll stay here as a distraction."

The thief nodded, "You got it, Shep. I'll be back in a flash." With that Kasumi vanished, making sure they didn't see her and staying to the shadows to prevent her shield from exposing her. Shepard and Garrus continued to attack the geth but they were only able to one geth trooper. Inside, Kasumi was looking around the upper level, "Hmm…My shields are going to fry if I go through the door…" As Kasumi leaned against a wall, she accidently pressed the controls to the shutters. "That'll work." Kasumi moved to cover as the shutters continued to open. This sudden activation caused one of the geth rocket troopers to turn to it. Garrus used that opportunity and took down the geth.

Kasumi continued to assist as she shot down some of the geth troopers below the bridge and Shepard finished off the last rocket trooper.

* * *

By request, Lissarkh was at the CIC to try and locate the Cyniad and crew. Some of the crew was skeptical that she could do anything to assist; Kix was the only one vocal about it. "We've been sitting here for almost half an hour now. Why shouldn't we just simply start looking into each system and hope we find something?"

Beviin added, "That would cost a lot of fuel, probes, and credits. The faster we find them the better."

Lissarkh asked for the presence of Rasen'Doran vas Ideena. She had the closest connection to the missing crew and Lissarkh was using that as a bases. She moved her hands across the galaxy map finding a location a few clusters away. Rasen checked her omni-tool, "That's where Mal and the Ideena are now."

Lissarkh couldn't help but note, "You and this Mal have a very deep bond. Are you mates or clan?"

Rasen was embarrassed by the first suggestion, "No, we're family!"

"So clan then." Lissarkh concentrated again, as she did she found another location, this one closer to where they were. "Here." Lissarkh had chosen the Sheol System. "That is where you will find what you seek."

Aran bowed slightly, "Thank you, General. Rang, get her back to medbay for some rest. Kix, Beviin, get us to that system."

Kix prepped up but he still complained, "We'd eventually have gone there. Trusting navigations to a supposed mystic."

* * *

As time continued to pass, Tali noticed Prudii as he started to fiddle with a round brown metal ball. It was different from the two drones floating above her now as it didn't have any 'eyes' that covered the surface of the sphere, there was a small ridge on the top and the middle was not covered by the outer shell. Tali called out to the commando, "Prudii…"

He seemed almost distract but he soon answered, "Yeah."

She was hesitant to ask but she soon found the courage to, "What is that you have in your hands?"

He showed her without an obscured view, "Class-A thermal detonator. Twenty meter blast radius. Rang modified a few to be bigger. He still has those."

Tali didn't like what Prudii was planning, "You're not going to…"

"No. Not suicidal. Last resort. If I…fail…I take them with me. Quarian marines continue to protect you as well as droids." The two droids beeped at Prudii. "Just making sure it's ready for them. Have a few other options but don't want to use them until absolutely necessary."

Tali turned back to the console, "Hang on, I'm going to check on Reegar and the others at base camp."

* * *

With the geth cleared again, Shepard and his team carefully move towards the fallen column that blocked their way. Placing the charges Kasumi shouted, "Charges are go. Move it or lose it!" Eight seconds after, they were set and the squad took cover, the charges went off, the explosion shock the area violently but it did the job and removed enough of the column to let them through.

After opening the first door the team moved in and Shepard tried to open the second. Instead, the first door closed and a decontamination sequence started. After about a minute, the door opened and one of the geth was trying to crawl its way towards them. Shepard almost opened fire on it but instead watched as the geth eventually shut down from power lose and system failures. Garrus couldn't help himself as he noted, "Quarian architecture. There's two words you don't expect to hear together."

Kasumi was looking at a few of the quarian bodies around the area, "This deep behind geth lines. Hope the quarians got what they were looking for."

Shepard found another one of Tali's journals and activated it. It sounded more like a personal journal then a scientific one, "Our ancestors walked these halls with uncovered heads. The sun must have been normal back then. So much space. Walls of stone…It's amazing. I wish my friends could see it. I wish Prudii and Sigma Squad were here."

Soon a terminal near the door activated and a holographic bust of Tali popped up. She was trying to make contact with the quarians that were here. "Tali'Zorah to base camp. Come in, base camp. Hello? Is anyone there?"

Shepard responded, "Tali, it's Shepard. I'm sorry. Everyone here is dead. Any survivors must have fallen back." Kasumi was checking to see if any might still be alive but to no avail.

A loud bang was heard over the channel as Tali looked down in disappointment, "We knew this mission was high risk. Damn it. And what are you doing here, Shepard? We're in the middle of geth space!"

Shepard joked around, "I was in the neighborhood. I thought you might need a hand."

Tali smiled from hearing that from her friend, "Thanks for coming, Shepard. It means a lot to hear your voice." She continued on, "Kal'Reegar and the rest of the marines got me outside of the observatory but Prudii got me into it. From where you are, it's though the door and across the field. I got the data I needed, and I'm safe for now, but I've got a lot of geth outside."

Shepard asked, "Would it help if I brought in the Normandy?"

Tali had time to think about a situation like that and quickly answered, "Doubtful. These buildings are centuries old. If you bring down heavy fire, this whole place could collapse on us."

Shepard wanted to know for certain what it was Tali was after, "What is this research you're after?"

She answered him honestly, "It's about this world's sun. It's aging faster than it should. I can tell you more about it once we've got fewer geth shooting at us."

Shepard would have expected to see Prudii if he was out here so he asked Tali, "Is anyone else still with you, or are you alone out there?"

Tali told him, "Prudii escorted me into the observatory. He's still here and he says he's been listening to the marine channels. At least some of them are still alive I can hear them firing at the geth outside."

Shepard looked at the door Tali mentioned, "It looks like somebody sealed the door against the geth, and the console is damaged. Can you get it open on your end?"

Tali looked around on her console, "Let me see…Yes, I can do it. Here. Should be unlocked now. Be careful, Shepard. And please, do what you can to keep Reegar and the others alive."

Continuing down the path the eventually came across an open field with some large support columns, but there were also a pair of geth recon drones. Shepard was able to shoot down one but the other vanished using an optical cloak. Kasumi shouted, "Those drones have optical camouflage systems. Stay frosty!"

* * *

As the Tervho exited FTL travel, the Sheol system was strange; only one world circled this star. Beviin was checking the comm. channels until he found something, "Got it. It's a weak signal but I should be able to find its origin." When Bev found it he launched a probe from the Tervho to investigate further. "Aran, we found it. It's a distress from a Lieutenant Forzan vas Idenna. She says she's from the Cyniad and requires immediate assistance, then it cuts out. The message itself is set on a constant loop. The vessel matches quarian design, and from what I remember this looks like same class as the Cyniad."

Rasen was still near the CIC when she asked, "How certain are you Beviin?"

"Eighty-five percent certain."

Aran trusted his second, "Rang, what do lifeform scans show?"

The explosive medic was silent for a time, an unusual thing for him. "Sorry Aran, there's too many lifeforms down there. The scanners can't get an accurate count, let alone identify quarians tangled up in that mess."

Aran started to shout orders, "Dagger, get the gunship ready. Palva, Rang, prep the medical team and arrange the gunship to transport injured. Tare, Rasen, Aay'han, Nyona, we're going a fire support."

The Mandalorians did not hesitate and did as Aran ordered. The Tervho waited in orbit as the team took off from the hangar. Reaching the origin of the distress call, they found a rather strange primitive jungle but the campsite was visible. Dagger had opened the slits for them to see the campsite. Tare saw, "It looks like they've been through a lot. It looks like they used some of the natural resources to build the tents."

Aran saw it too, "Take it nice and easy, Dagger. Your baby's new to this galaxy, so drop us off and see what you can find in the sky."

"Roger that." Little less than a meter off the ground the doors opened and the Mandalorians disembarked. As soon as the last got off with their gear, Dagger took off.

Aran told the others, "Keep tight, and watch each other's backs. Something about this place doesn't feel right."

Rang tapped his shoulder, "Come on, please don't jinx us like that. Anytime one of us or the Jedi ever say 'I have a bad feeling about this', something bad happens."

Rasen and Tare were investigating the table with a terminal and a few datapads. Rasen shouted, "I found something." Rasen looked though the logs, "No, no, no."

Aran turned to his friend, "What's the matter?"

"Damnit!" Rasen slammed her fists against the table, "The idiots got too close to and the geth appeared. They got desperate, so they silenced the Cyniad's engines. Right idea but the problem is the Cyniad was one of the original ships that left our homeworld, the strain on the engines was too much for him to handle."

Rang teased her, "Him? I thought all ships were hers?"

Rasen made the motion of hitting him and Rang backed down. Rasen was reading the other entries when she found it, "Gorlat died in the crash. Forzan is the senior officer in charge. Wait, what?"

Aran asked her, "What is it?"

"Someone, or something, has taken survivors at night. Forzan planned to form a search party the next day from the journal entry."

One of the medics shouted, "We've found something." The others gathered to him as he pointed it out, "It's a blood trail. I think it might be quarian."

Palva was already examining the body at the end of the short wind gap. "She's dead already. Died about 3 hours ago."

Aran grabbed his DC-17m, "Keep sharp Mandalorians. We're not losing anyone, and we're evacing the quarians survivors."

Palva waited for the other before she moved up. They found several other bodies, many quarians and a few varren corpses. Palva noticed one of the quarians was still moving, though weak, "We've got a live one!"

Rasen recognized her, "Forzan!"

Rang was with Palva and started to work, "OK miss, we're getting you out of here."

The quarian was delirious but she was stable enough to grab Rang's arm and ask, "The others…where are the others…"

Nyona, Tare, Aay'han and Araniik started to check the small box canyon. They found more bodies and bones around several burrows within the walls. "Mandalorians, nothing gets to that quarian. Dagger, get back here ASAP!"

Rang stopped him, "No go boss man, we need time to stabilize her before she can be moved. Several puncture wounds and tears in her envirosuit and she has some bleeding so we need time to isolate the infections and…"

"How long!"

Rang didn't joke around like usual, "Give us about a minute or two."

Dagger flew overhead, "You may not need the pickup just yet, but that doesn't stop us from helping out, does it?"

Aran smiled underneath his helmet, "No it doesn't."

"Wait…" Swoop made a few scans, "Hold your fire guys. The sediment around them is volatile."

Jak was looking around, "How bad is it?"

Swoop explained in simple terms, "One wrong shot and that box canyon could light up faster than a room filled with tibanna."

Dagger slammed against the cockpit, "Blast it! We still can't do anything again to help!"

Aay'han corrected him as he waited for the beasts, "Wrong, without you we're not going to be able to evac as fast. Isn't that right Aran?"

"Right. The stupid shuttle we had would have returned to the Tervho then came back, much longer wait." Soon enough the varren started to get hungry and emerged from their burrows. Aran and the other formed into a human wall in between Forzan and the varren. Aran then shouted, "Mandalorians, none of these beasts gets to Forzan!"

* * *

**A/N: **Yeah just to move the story along, I decided to skip over the fights(most of it). I thought since Sigma had interaction with Mal and the crew of the Ideena, they should get this one that and the location of it is so out there(like most N7 missions in ME2). The whole 'volatile' thing was because some of the rocks in the area can explode if you shot them(though I'm over exaggerating so they don't overpower the varren). The modified Tali journal entry I wrote out like that becuase I always believed it to be one of her earlier entries when the quarians first arrived on Haestrom.

**Mando'a Translation: **Sorry, nothing again.


	34. A crisis of two

**A/N: **That was a long break. I don't think I need to say anything her so on with the story.

* * *

A few minutes ago, back on the planet Gei Hinnom, Aran and his team continued to hold the line against the voracious varren. "Rang, Palva, how much longer?"

"Hang tight boss man, just one more hole and…done!" Rang immediately contacted the gunship, "OK flyboys, we're ready for the extraction."

"Copy that. Hang tight fellas." Swoop opened the port bay doors as Dagger lowered the gunship into the box canyon. Getting closer to the ground Jak and Rook took a few shots at the few beasts the team hadn't killed off yet, careful not to hit anything but the varren.

Rasen fell back to Forzan to help her back onto her feet. She started to talk to her as Rasen helped her limp her way into the gunship. "Everything's going to be alright Forzan, we'll get you home."

Still delusional from some of the infections, Rasen's voice was muffled more so then her helmet normally did. But something about the voice still connected to the lieutenant. "Rasen? Is that you?"

Rang butted in, "Not that I don't like touching reunions and, hell I love 'em, but I think we should be a bit more concerned about getting on the ship first."

Forzan and Rasen were the first into the gunship, followed by the medical team, Nyona and Tare. Aran stood watch of the varren who were out of their burrows, still ready to feast. One of the creatures made a desperate dash at Aran in hopes of getting to the weakened quarian. Instead, Aay'han punched the beast square in the eyes before pulling the trigger on his WESTAR and having a plasma bolt go though its cranium. The two clones continued to watch and make sure no other varren tried to get in. Instead they watched as the varren started to eat their own dead. With everyone safely secured, Dagger and Swoop took off, returning to the Tervho. From all of the comm. chatter Beviin had made contact with the Ideena and scheduled a rendezvous to give them the location of the Cyniad and the last surviving crew member.

* * *

Shepard and his squad made it half way through the field and the geth continue to give heavy resistance. The area has been swarmed by waves of geth recon drones and a Prime. Garrus and Kasumi focused on the seemingly endless waves of recon drones while Shepard whittled away at the Geth Prime. Just like the last Prime Shepard and team faced off against, this one had an M-76 Revenant. The Prime used the large support pillars in the area as cover as it continued to move closer to them. Shepard was able to take down its shields and stripped away part of its armor. They moved to intercept the Prime before it could get the jump on them. Just as they were next to the wall, a new wave of drones appeared. The drones were still rather close together and Garrus used that to toss an Overload tech to take all four out. As the four drones exploded, the Prime reappeared, ready for a fight.

The three man squad focused on the Prime until it finally succumbed to their combined firepower and tech attacks. Even with the Prime defeated more recon drones continued to come out of stealth and attack the squad. As they pressed through the waves of geth drones they were met by another Geth Prime. Garrus and Kasumi quickly tossed Overload attack at the Prime, bringing down most of its shield and overheating its weapon. A new wave of drones appeared but Shepard wanted the Prime to be taken out first, ordering the squad to focus on it until it was destroyed. The Prime didn't last long against them but focusing only on the Prime did leave them exposed to the drone assault. Garrus lost his shield and took a few hits but he was still fine. Kasumi tossed an Overload and took out two of the attackers. Shepard was able to gun another one down and Kasumi took care of the last one.

There were three more waves of drones before they finally stopped appearing. Finally making it across the field Shepard opened a doorway to a room with closed shutters. As Shepard hacked into it, Kasumi had unlocking a wall safe nearby. As the shutters opened and Shepard was about to move on, Garrus was the first one to spot it as the squad stared. It turned around after hearing the shutters open, it was a geth armature.

Kasumi shouted, "Oh, God. Colossus!"

The Colossus moved into position as it charged it Siege Pulse Cannon. Shepard ordered the team, "Get down!"

The squad dived out of the way, just barely avoid the splash damage from the pulse. The other geth turned their attention from the locked door towards the squad moving to intercept them. Getting back up Garrus could help himself as he noted, "Definitely like old times."

Moving on down the ramp, there was a male quarian in red armor with a missile launcher. He waved them over as he shouted to them, "Over here! Get to cover!" The quarian fired a few missiles as Shepard and the rest of his squad took cover. As soon as they were behind the fencing the quarian returned to cover and introduced himself, "Squad Leader Kal'Reegar, Migrant Fleet Marines. We talked on the radio before that dropship arrived. Still got no idea why you're here, but this ain't the time to be picky." A Siege Pulse slammed into the wall Reegar was taking cover behind, blowing dust around and Reegar moved slightly to avoid the shockwave. One of the geth's shots got pretty close to Reegar's faceplate as it hit the segment of wall closet to him. Reegar started to give Shepard a sitrep, "Tali's inside over there." Shepard tried to get a look but the fire was heavy forcing Shepard to cover for a moment before he continued to look, "The geth killed the rest of my squad, and they're trying to get to her. Best I've been able to do is draw their attention." Another Siege Pulse hit as Reegar braced for the shock.

Shepard was concerned for his friend as he asked Reegar, "Are you sure she's still alive?"

Reegar pointed out how unlikely she wasn't, "The observatory is reinforced. Even the geth will need time to get through it." Reegar let out a small, proud, chuckle as he commented, "And it's hard to hack a door when someone's firing rockets at you. The geth are near platoon strength, but the colossus is the worst part. It got a repair protocol. Huddles up and fixes itself. I can't get a clear shot while it's down like that. I tried to move in closer, and one of the bastards punched a shot clean though my suit."

Shepard was concerned, knowing how fragile the quarian immune system was. "How bad is your suit damage?"

Reegar replied, "Combat seals clamped down to isolate contamination, and I'm swimming in antibiotics. The get might get me, but I'm not going to die from an infection in the middle of a battle. That's just insulting." He almost seemed insulted that Shepard asked.

Shepard wanted a sense of the terrain, "What can you tell me about the battlefield?"

Reegar laid out the area simply, "The right side's got a catwalk with a sniper perch. You could wreak some havoc from there, but none of my men made it past the geth. The middle's got cover, but the damn colossus has a clear shot at you the whole time, and you've got geth coming in from both sides. The left gives you some cover from the colossus, but your ass is hanging out for the geth. That's how I got shot."

Shepard had faced against a colossus on foot once back on Therum, but the quarians might have had insight he didn't know about. "Any ideas on how to deal with the colossus?"

Reegar remembered his training, "Standard protocol with armature-class units is to sabotage the shields and whittle it down, you know. Kill it with bug bites. But the repair protocol blows that plan to hell. You try to wear it down, it just huddles up and fixes itself. So whatever we do has to scrap that bastard fast. Probably means getting up close, past that cover."

Another Siege Pulse made contact against their cover. Shepard said, "We need to get to Tali. Got any ideas?"

Reegar seemed to have already had his answer before Shepard asked, "Just one. I'm not moving so well but I can still pull a trigger, and I've got a rocket launcher that the sun hasn't fried yet. You move in close. I'll keep the colossus busy, maybe even drop its shields. With luck, you'll be able to finish it off."

Shepard didn't like the plan, especially with the condition Reegar was in, "You've done enough, Reegar. You don't need to throw your life away."

Reegar was a stubborn one, "Wasn't asking your permission. My job is to keep Tali safe. This…"

Shepard intervened as he pulled him behind the wall to yell at him, "We don't have enough people on our side for you to take one for the team! Stand down!"

Back behind cover Reegar argued, "I'm not going to stand there while you run into enemy fire! They killed my whole squad!"

Shepard knew what it was like to lose one's entire squad, part of his mind flashing back to Akuze. "And if you want to honor your squad, watch my back! I need you here in case they bring reinforcements!"

Reegar wanted to argue more but with all of the geth, he eventually succeeded, "Alright, Shepard. We'll do it your way. Hit them for me. Keelah se'lai."

The geth were relentless in their assault against them, not letting the squad have time to properly retaliate. Shepard acted as a distraction as Garrus moved to another section of barriers to get a better angle on the geth troopers. The only real problem was the colossus and its Siege Purge, luckily it was only targeting the Commander for now and they started to use that to their advantage.

* * *

As the geth continued to attempt at hacking Tali's lock Prudii started to hear more weapons fire. "Tali. Shepard is here. Fighting's getting intense. Colossus active."

Tali knew how efficient Shepard was in a fight but she still had her own worries about the situation. "Can you tell how it's going?"

Prudii listened but the sounds were pretty muffled and the amount of fire wasn't making it clear. "Can't tell. We'll know soon enough."

* * *

Aran had arranged a rendezvous with the Idenna to personally hand off Lieutenant Forzan. Instead of using Dagger's gunship, they used the Kodiak drop shuttle. Accompanying Aran was Rasen, Rang and Beviin. Tare had few interactions with the Idenna crew both before and after joining the clone commandos. The others too really had no connection to the quarians other than the commandos and a few jobs they have done for the Migrant Fleet.

After going through a series of decontaminations the group was greeted by Captain Mal and the rest of the Idenna crew. "Welcome home again, Rasen'Doran."

Mal stepped forward and Rasen walked into his arms as the two embraced in a hug, "It's good to see you again too, Captain."

Mal couldn't stop a chuck that escaped his lips, "Little Ra, you don't have to be so formal with me."

"Ysin!"

Rang now had a new 'ammunition' to use against her, "Little Ra? Seriously?"

Rasen had that look she had developed specifically for Rang when she wanted to hurt him. She used her silver glowing eyes to their full effect. "Only Mal and my parents are allowed to call me that!"

As Rang stepped behind Beviin, Aran stepped forward to greet Mal, extending his right hand out, "Pleasure to see you again Mal."

Mal gladly grabbed it and thanked Aran, "I'm glad to see you were able to rescue Forzan. And from what you have scanned, the Cyniad appears to be salvageable."

Forzan stepped forward and saluted to Mal, "Please forgive me, Captain. I have failed…"

Oddly, Beviin spoke up, "You were not at fault Lieutenant. You were not the commanding officer when the ship crashed. From the journal entries we recovered, you did everything by the book. You established a base camp and tended to the wounded. You weren't expecting the varren, you couldn't know they were there with the equipment you had."

Rang pat his 'brother' on the back of his pack. "Wow, I've never heard you defend someone like that. If I ever get in trouble with C-Sec or any other authority I want you to be my advocate. But on a serious note, you did good to survive as long as you did, varren are nasty beasties."

Aran added, "Bev's right, Forzan. You did everything you could for your crew. Now, honor them by continuing to live and find a new world for your people."

Forzan wasn't expecting this kind of support from strangers, especially those outside the quarians. Rasen also commented, "Everyone knew the risks leaving the Fleet like this, I know you will find a new home for all of us. I just wish I could have been there, I might have been able to do something to help, I don't know."

"No offense, but not even your skills could have stopped the Cyniad's engines from failing as they did." With the support from Rasen, Forzan nodded and thanked the group, "But, thank you for saving me…and for this." She turned to Mal and saluted, "Lieutenant Forzan vas Ideena ready for duty, sir."

Her captain returned it with another salute, "Just to let you know, I wasn't placing blame on anyone besides the geth." Forzan moved to Mal's side as Ysin started to speak again, "May you stand between your crew and harm as you lead them through the empty quarters of the stars."

"Keelah se'lai." Rasen explained to the trio, "It's an old ship captain's blessing."

Aran saluted, "It was our pleasure. Mandalorians, we're heading out."

Mal stopped them, "Wait! I haven't properly repaid you for this or…"

Rang explained, "No need Cap, you let us bunk in your ship, gave us food, a good supply of air, and this brainy engineer. This is the least we could do for you guys."

Mal never liked how he felt indebted to them but still wanted to give them something, "Well, if you won't accept credits, then take this. Augmentations for omni-tools. I'm certain you can find a use for it." Beviin 'caught' the data and started to look it over. As he did that, Mal asked, "Where is your fourth 'brother', Prudii?"

* * *

Shepard and his squad took the right path, Shepard and Garrus took out geth using their sniper rifles while Kasumi handled any geth on the catwalk. They pushed their way to the colossus and chipped away at it until if finally blew up. After mopping up the rest of the geth, Tali unlocked the door to the observatory. "Just a second. I locked the door to keep more geth from getting inside. There that should do it."

As the door opened, a voice started to speak, "Hold it." Just like when Kasumi drops out of a cloak, a flash of white static in the form of a humanoid with a weapon in hand until it finished dissipating to reveal the black armored commando. Prudii had his weapon aimed at Shepard's head as a pair of strange metal orbs floated down from behind the doorway, just above the door itself. Prudii looked at the squad and simply said, "No Cerberus." He returned his weapon to his leg and walked to the back towards Tali, the two orbs followed.

Tali could hear the commotion behind her and told them, "Let me just finish this download…"

As she did, Kasumi found some rather interesting parts that Cerberus was willing to pay plenty for. Kasumi started to pepper the commando with questions, "I thought it was strange that I didn't see you with your brothers on Horizon. Don't you and your brothers preferred to stay close? Why are you here, Prudii?"

Prudii grabbed the two orbs and returned them to his pack, simply answering the thief, "I have my reasons."

Tali finished her work on the console turning to the others, "Thank you, Shepard. If not for you, I would never have made it out of this room. This whole mission has been a disaster. I wish I'd joined you back on Freedom's Progress, but I couldn't let anyone take my place on something this risky." Hearing upset Prudii slightly but he hid the emotion like others before.

Shepard asked his former crew member, "A lot of quarians lost their lives here. Was it worth it?"

Tali seemed conflicted as she answered, "I don't know, Shepard. It wasn't my call. The Admiralty Board believed the information here was worth sacrificing all our lives for. I have to believe that they know what's best."

Shepard corrected her, "I didn't ask what some admiral thought. I asked what you thought."

Tali then spoke her mind, "A lot of people died here. Some of them were my friends. All of them were good at their jobs. That damn data better be worth it. The price was too high."

Prudii, uncharacteristically, added, "Just like Ord Mantell and Asturias. They didn't need to die like that."

Tali turned and asked him, "Who?"

"I'll tell you later." Prudii figured Cerberus probably placed some type of tracker or bug to listen in on Shepard's conversations or he might send them a report.

Shepard still hadn't received a real answer as to why the quarians were here. "What can you tell me about your research here?"

Tali activated her omni-tool and displayed the Haestrom's sun as she explained. "Haestrom's sun is destabilizing. Back when this was a quarian colony, it was a normal star. It shouldn't change that quickly."

This matter was indeed dire. Shepard then asked Tali, "Any idea what's destabilizing the sun?"

"If I had to guess, I'd say that it was dark energy affecting the interior of the star. The effect is similar to when stars blow off mass to enter a red giant phase, but Haestrom's sun is far too young for this to be natural."

Shepard knew that if this occurs again it will be trouble but for now he was just pleased his friend was safe. "Whatever the reason, I'm glad I could help. Once you deliver that data, I could use you on the Normandy."

"I promised to see this mission through. I did. I can leave with you and send the data to the Fleet. And if the admirals have a problem with it, they can go to hell. I just watched the rest of my team die."

As she moved to the door to leave the observatory, Kal'Reegar walked in, limping from his injury, correcting her, "Maybe not the whole rest of your team, ma'am."

"Reegar! You made it!"

"Your old captain's as good as you said. Damn colossus never stood a chance."

Shepard offered the injured marine a ride, "If need be, the Normandy can get you out of here, Reegar."

Reegar declined explaining, "The geth didn't damage out ship. Long as we get out of here before reinforcements show up, we'll be fine."

Tali had to inform the marine otherwise, "Actually, I won't be going with you. I'm joining Commander Shepard."

Reegar understood, "I'll pass the data to the Admiralty Board and let them know what happened. She's all yours now, Shepard. Keep her safe." Reegar turned to Prudii, "So, I get the 'honor' of returning the merc to his crew, huh?"

"Negative." Prudii stood beside Tali. "My mission is to protect Tali. I intend to do that. I don't trust some of the crew Shepard has. Nothing against the Commander personally, yet. I'll contact my _vode_. You return to the Fleet."

Reegar semi-joked with him, "So going for a bonus on the job then?"

Prudii corrected the marine, "No. Have already been 'paid'. Just making sure the job is complete."

"A lot of strange things are happening today." Reegar then told the commando, "You better keep to your word then." The two of them gave the other a long hard stare, before Prudii ended it with a nod. "See you around the galaxy, Mandalorian."

* * *

**A/N: **Thank you walls of texts taken from the game. Now that Prudii is effectively stuck on the Normandy, things are going to very interesting. We'll see how the Tervho crew deal with this when they find out.

**Mando'a Translation: **Sorry, nothing, yet again. I'm hoping to have more soon.


	35. Uneasy settling

**A****/N: **Welcome back to the unknown fanbase that still read this. I'll admit I've been a bit lazy as of late about adding Mando'a in the writing but I've been rather busy having barely enough time to think these out, that and the limited list of words doesn't help either. I'm hoping people like where I'm going with this and they won't complain(too much) about it. Now that 'that' is off my chest, time for the story.

* * *

Having returned to the Normandy SR-2, Shepard changed into his casual clothing, the evening wear he used when he helped Kasumi with her mission. Shepard, along with former corsair Jacob Taylor, were waiting in the briefing room when both Tali and Prudii walked in. Jacob started to welcome Tali aboard, "Cerberus saw footage of you in action, Tali'Zorah. We're looking forward to having you on the team. Your engineering expertise will really benefit the mission."

As Tali walked around Shepard and keeping an eye on Jacob she laid down a few points to him while standing in the back of the room, "I don't know who you are, but Cerberus threatened the security of the Migrant Fleet. Don't make nice."

Shepard assured her, "That's why you're here, Tali. I need people who aren't Cerberus—people I can trust."

Jacob tried to appease her, "I wasn't part of what happened to the Migrant Fleet, but I understand your distrust. I hope well get past that as we work together."

Prudii denoted, "Course not. You'd be dead. I was there. We killed all but one man. Only because he warned us about the bomb and he was quarians' prisoner. Doubt he returned to Cerberus."

Jacob wasn't sure about the 'extra baggage', "Cerberus doesn't know…"

"Good!" Not even giving him a chance say it, "Means we've been doing our jobs and keeping ourselves out of sight." Prudii also had a few things he wanted laid out, "Any Cerberus tries to touch me, scan me or my gear," Prudii extended both knuckle vibroblades, "I'll start slaughtering every Cerberus crewmember onboard."

Tali started to walk closer to Shepard as she told him, "I assumed that you were undercover, Shepard. Maybe even planning to blow Cerberus up. If that's the case, I'll loan you a grenade. Otherwise, I'm here for you. Not for them."

Prudii also turned to the Commander, "Wherever Tali goes, I go. I'm willing to fight but don't expect much cooperation with Cerberus."

Shepard nodded to Prudii then looked to Tali, "If it helps, check out the Normandy while you're here. We've gotten a few upgrades."

Jacob then said, "I'll get Tali'Zorah the necessary security clearance to access our systems."

"Please do. I can't be part of your team if I don't know how the ship works." Tali started to leave, but before she did, she stopped to remind Shepard, "Remember, Shepard, these people thought enslaving Thorian creepers and rachni was a good idea. I'll be in engineering."

As the two of them started to move to the door, Jacob added before they left, "Don't forget to introduce yourself to EDI, the ship's new artificial intelligence."

Tali stopped dead cold the moment she heard those last two words. She was giving the nastiest look Prudii had ever seen, but her helmet was obscuring it, with her silver glowing eyes as her only visual ques. Prudii understood why quarians hate A.I. but he himself has only met a few droids that were useful or 'good'. Prudii pulled out a small grey metal hexagon shaped cylinder along with a brown metal ball. "This A.I. better have a good restraining bolt on it, otherwise I'm using these. Keep it on a tight leash, else I use both on the droid brain." With that both of them continued on.

As they rode down the elevator together, Tali asked Prudii, "I'm assuming they're grenades?"

"Yes." Prudii returned both to his pack, "EMP to kill the programming. Thermal to destroy its physically parts. Droids can still be reused after taking an EMP blast. Need to destroy the body too if you don't want it to be salvaged. Have to think different when fighting a droid," speaking from personal experience.

"Prudii…" Tali started fiddling with her fingers, "You don't have to keep up this charade." She was referring to Prudii pretending to be a merc for hire.

"I'd rather let them think it for now. No need to say otherwise."

* * *

After Prudii and Tali had left, Shepard spoke with Kelly Chambers, the Normandy's unofficial psychiatrist. As she turned from her console to speak with Shepard, she smiled, "I had a wonderful chat with your friend Tali. She's not what I expected from her psych report. I like her."

Shepard was glad that she was making some connections with a few of the Normandy's new crew. "Tali's a good friend. We've been through a lot together."

Kelly couldn't help but comment to the Commander, "My female intuition says she might want to be more than just good friends."

Shepard hadn't seen it before, "What makes you say that?"

Kelly explained, "It's in her body language. How she turns to you when you enter the room. How she watches your every move. But she seems conflicted about something. Quarians are so fascinating to me, but they also make me a little sad."

Shepard didn't follow, "Why do they make you sad?"

Kelly had a depressed face on her, "Their environment suits are so beautiful, but with their immune systems, they're trapped inside. I wonder what they look like under those helmets, or what their skin feels like under those suits."

Shepard couldn't help but asked Kelly about their extra passenger, "Well, what about Prudii? Has he talked with you?"

Kelly confessed, "I haven't said a word to him, yet even through that helmet of his I can't help but feel he wants to kill me just because."

Shepard had only worked with the commando in three operations; two of which were after he was brought back by Cerberus. Even with Prudii's threat, Shepard tried to think otherwise, "I don't think he really wants to kill you."

"I don't know about that Shepard, the way he stares at me, the feeling that he's planning to end my life in some horrible way."

Shepard assured her, "I wouldn't take it personally, he has had a few encounters with Cerberus, unfriendly ones I'm sure."

Kelly gave the commander one finally warning, "Just watch yourself around him when you're with Tali. I don't know if he just takes his job seriously or he might have feelings for her he just doesn't realize."

Shepard planned to speak with Mordin, Kasumi, Garrus, and Zaeed, since they all have had past experience with Sigma Squad during his 'absence', or in Mordin's case 'reappearance'.

As Shepard walked in, Mordin immediately asked the Commander, "Shepard. How can I help?" just like the last time, the salarian doctor didn't bother to look away from his screen when he asked.

"Have you got a minute to talk?"

"Later. Updating crew dental records. All Cerberus personnel have cyanide capsules in molars. Primitive. Ocular nerve flashbangs harder to disarm."

Despite the rather disturbing news about the crew, Shepard pressed the matter. "I wanted to talk about Sigma Squad."

This seemed to have the professor's interest. Mordin raised his head as he responded, "Ah, hoping I might have insight on latest addition. Sadly I do not. Never actually met before vorcha incident. Even then, only met one. Doubt I'd be of much help. Still interested myself, what makes a Mandalorian different. Could probably ask later. Anything else?"

Shepard was finished. "I'll let you work."

Mordin had already returned to his projects as he told Shepard, "Will be here if you need me."

* * *

Going down to the Crew's Quarters, Shepard make his first stop to the crew's resident thief. As he entered the Port Observatory, Kasumi waves to him, "Hi'ya Shep. It looks like you want to talk to me about something."

Shepard didn't want to know if she already knew or if she was simply good at reading people. He got to the point, "You seem familiar with the Mandalorians…"

She intervened, "And you were hoping I might have some insight on Mr. Grumpy down a deck. Sorry Shep, but the most I've interacted with them was Bev, Rasen and Rang. Keiji was partnered with Prudii, Nyona and the batarian they have." Before Shepard could ask, "Keiji said he was an odd fellow but a nice guy."

Shepard followed up with, "How did he behave during your 'mission'." Stressing the term knowing what she did.

"Well Rang did most of the talking. I found some of it to be rather funny myself. Bev made sure we kept to the plan and everyone else continued to remain in contact."

Shepard still didn't hear anything about Prudii, "But what about 'him'?"

Kasumi was trying to remember, "I don't remember him talking much. Actually, I don't remember him ever speaking other than to warn us about patrols or something. Even then he was brief."

"Thanks. I'll be going."

As Shepard walked out the door, Kasumi shouted, "Your friend Tali seems rather fun. I hope to spend some time with her."

Moving on the Commander headed straight to Garrus, ignoring Hawthorne harass the mess sergeant about his improved cooking. As the doors to the Main Battery Room opened, the scared turian turned around to find the commander. "Shepard. Need me for something?" Asking the same thing as when he first entered.

Shepard lend against the railing, "I want to see if you knew anything more about our unexpected passenger."

Garrus had to think about it for a moment, "As a fighter he's one of the best, as a conversationalist, well let's just say you'd probably get more out of a tree."

"I've been getting that sense from Kasumi."

"Well that's how he is." Garrus continued, "In a way, he's the perfect sniper. Doesn't make much noise, even with the armor and all of that gear, stays to the shadows, and only breaks radio silence when absolutely necessary."

Shepard thought about it and from the few interactions the Commander did have with him Prudii hasn't changed much. "Any advice about getting on his good side?"

Garrus had to think about it again before finally having an answer. "The best thing _you_ could do is keep as many Cerberus people away from him. Otherwise, just stay out of his way."

Shepard was hoping for something different. "Is that it?"

"Yeah, try not to have Miranda or Jacob with you if he decides to tag along for whatever reason."

* * *

Down in engineering, Prudii leaned himself against some railing next to Tali while keeping an eye on the two engineers with them. Prudii heard the automated doors behind Tali open, peering for a moment to see Shepard, Prudii returned his glare back to the two engineers.

Shepard started to speak with Tali. When she motioned for him to follow her towards the ship's drive core, Prudii looked Shepard visor to eye as he passed. Prudii did not listen in to Tali but he continued to read Shepard's lips and some of his reactions to determine the conversation. He asked about Kal'Reegar, Prudii knew as he had asked Tali earlier.

* * *

As Shepard continued to catch up with his friend and former crew member, Shepard decided to ask her something he noticed a while back. "I caught some tension back on Freedom's Progress and again when you first came aboard. What happened between Cerberus, the quarians and Sigma Squad?"

Tali answered up front, "They attacked one of our ships, the Idenna. It seems they were attempting to kill or control a young human biotic who was on the Fleet. Prudii was the one who informed me about it during the attack. I don't really know the details. I do know that Cerberus made an enemy of the quarian people and Sigma Squad."

Now answering Tali's pervious question, Shepard replied, "I fully expect them to betray us at some point. And we'll be ready."

Tali was hopeful, "I'm glad to hear that, Shepard. Just let me know how I can help. For now, I should get back to work. Thanks for coming by."

Tali returned to her station with Shepard behind her. Prudii was expecting the Commander to leave but instead he stopped at him. "Prudii." The Mandalorian simply stared at him, not flinching or moving to indicate he acknowledged his presence. "I was hoping to speak with you."

"No…" the commando blatantly told him.

Shepard could only ask him, "Why not?

Prudii started to point to different parts of the room, "Remove Cerberus' eyes and ears, might talk about my people. Otherwise, won't betray them."

Shepard looked at the location but he couldn't see them, "I don't see them. Are you sure the cameras are there?"

"Positive." Prudii reclined against the handrail. "Tali disabled a few." Prudii started to dig into one of his bandoleer pouches, "Destroyed a few." He showed the commander the destroyed components then dropped them onto the floor and crushed them with his boot. Prudii added, "Few can't reach…" Prudii pulled out his pistol and aimed between a few pipes, "Correction, can. Don't want to waste ammo."

Shepard started to see what Kelly meant. "Could you at least tell me what happened for Cerberus to get on your bad side?"

Prudii now crossed his arm, "Simple. They attacked the Idenna."

"There has to be more to it."

"Fine. After you…disappeared…we took Tali to the Fleet, with our ship. Needed a crew, only had four of us. Made a deal with the quarians, help fix up one of their ships we get a few volunteers for our ship. A month past and we we're about finished with the Idenna. Rang spotted a ship. An engineer confirmed it was a missing ship, the Cyniad. Captured by Cerberus, with the help of Golo…"

"Golo? You mean Golo nar Tasi?" Prudii hadn't told Tali all of the details about the attack.

Prudii turned his head to look to her, "Rasen called him 'vas Nedas'."

Tali noted with a bit of spite, "They're the same thing more or less. He's a traitor to our people."

Prudii continued, "Rasen informed us Cyniad went missing when Golo wanted to trade. We didn't like it. Stowed away in the bilge. Cut all communication. Rasen returned, we moved to trading deck to engage Cerberus. Didn't know until after we engaged. They killed a lot of security personnel. We fought back. Killed all Cerberus agents. In the hangar bay, found a Cerberus man, injured, aided by a woman, not Cerberus. Warned us about a bomb on the Cyniad. Captain Mal and another deactivated it in time. Rang examined it while dismantling bomb, said it would have left a large hole in Idenna."

"Cerberus wouldn't…"

"No?" Prudii shouted at the engineer. "What do you know about Cerberus?" That made the man shut his lips. "As commandos, we wanted to kill the last Cerberus man. But Aran said he was quarians' prisoner. Let them decide. Captain Mal declared he was to go to Alliance. Planned to transfer him. Unfortunately it seemed he escaped."

Shepard didn't understand how that led the Mandalorians to have such a hate for Cerberus. "There has to be more to it than the attack on the Migrant Fleet. Something must have happened to you guys directly."

Prudii simply stared at Shepard. "There is. We went to the Citadel. After a while we noticed shadows following us. We killed them. Leaving, a ship followed us. We managed to scare them off."

Shepard asked him, "How did you know they're Cerberus?"

"Had the colors. Also, the symbol hidden underside of the clothing."

Shepard wanted to know have they managed to lose their tail. "So what did you do to 'scare them off'?"

Prudii continued to answer in the monotone he's been speaking with. "Beviin changed the ship's ID and Rang imitated a turian. Pretended to be part of a turian scout flotilla."

"So following you put them on your bad side?"

Prudii corrected him, "No. Leading to it. Traveled to Omega. Recruited part of a crew. We made a business deal with a shop keeper. He knew Cerberus had a few warehouses on Omega. He wanted their gear. Only problem: finding the warehouses."

Shepard thought out loud. "It must have been hard. I wouldn't think Cerberus left many ways of finding them."

"They didn't. I thought of a plan. I played decoy."

"Wait, you what?" Tali asked him.

Prudii lowered his head. He forced himself to say, "I…I let them…capture me…"

Shepard questioned this, "So what's wrong with that?"

Prudii pressed his helmet against Shepard's face, "My job is to stay out of sight. Kill from the shadows. I don't get caught."

Shepard understood now, "So you're mad because you let yourself get captured?"

Prudii corrected him, "No…partly." Correcting himself before continuing, "Cerberus' arrogance. Also, vengeance; how they treated me, how they thought they captured me on their own. Partly because of bodies we found after."

"Bodies?"

Prudii wasn't going to lie, there was no need to. "Turians. Batarians. Salarians. A few asari. Looked like they shipped sample and gear to others."

Shepard knew Cerberus would do anything to 'advance' humanity, even killing humans such as Rear Admiral Kahoku. "Shepard could tell something else was bothering him. "There must be something behind it for you personally."

Prudii leaned back against the railing again. "Yeah. Had to break a few buir's life rules." Knowing the Commander might ask, Prudii continued, "Never be alone, unless absolutely necessary, always carry a weapon, concealed or otherwise, always keep an eye on your surroundings, never get trapped into a corner. Anything else, Shepard?"

Shepard stepped back, "No. I hope you're willing to work with the others."

Prudii added, "I won't mind working with the others. It's the Cerberus people I don't trust."

* * *

As things start to return to their norm on board the Mandalorian ship, Tervho. Jak and Rook started to make use of the training area, honing their sight and targeting. Aay'han had slowly returned to his original job of being an Advisor, but he still throws himself into the line of fire every job or so. C3, Dagger and Swoop have kept themselves busy during their down times with flight simulations and seeing if the Tervho could handle the ARC-170's hyperdrive. Rasen continued to watch the astromech droid from a distance, despite the trust Sigma Squad has openly given the machine. Lissarkh's recovery has continued well but, relying on her training as a Jedi to manage the pain of growing a new limb. Professor Pyth now spends most of her time in the medical bay going over all available data she could find on the sentients of this galaxy as well as the Protheans still attempting to decipher the data.

As Pyth continued her research she continued to hear a strange voice within the medbay. At first she shrugged it off as merely the minds of the crew. Pyth soon found the origin of the strange voice, a small silver sphere hidden away in one of Rang's draws. As the Draethos was about to touch it, Rang walked in, "Yo Doc? Why are you looking though my stuff?"

Pyth quickly pulled her hand back, "Oh, I must apologies. I kept hearing this voice. At first it was a simple murmur, like a whistle in the wind but soon it gained strength. But I do apologies, I just wanted to find the origin of the voice."

Rang looked down at the artifact, "So you heard a voice…coming from that?" simply pointing down to the sphere.

"Why yes. Oh, forgive me, I keep forgetting most sentients aren't telepathic. But yes, I do hear a voice. Unintelligible, but a voice just the same."

Rang picked up the Prothean artifact they took from Cerberus so long ago, "You know doc, I think it's about time we crack open this egg. But I think we need the General's help to do that."

Pyth was rather patient, in spite of her rather fast pace behavior. "Yes, I remember an article I found a while ago that spoke about Prothean artifacts and requiring a strong willed individual to 'absorb' the data directly into their mind. I'm not sure what this 'Dr. T'Soni' meant but I am curious as to what will happen."

* * *

**A/N: **Prudii has esteablished his ground and he won't be moving much. For those who have played through Mass Effect 2, I'm just skipping a majority of Shepard's 'talks' with his crew just to get to the 'nit and grit' so he does regularly talk with them when they have something new to talk about, like Jack when she found the location for the facility Cerberus had her or Jacob and the unknown email about the ship his father dissapered on. I don't like to write out the game if we played through it or can watch a walkthrough on Youtube, I'll try to keep the fighting as exciting as I can write it though. So next chapter I'm probably going to focus more on the Mandalorians, until Shepard decides he needs Tali to help him.

**Mando'a Translation: **Sorry, nothing today.


	36. First Floor: Mechs, Mercs and Workers

**A/N: **I got to go to the Bioware camp at Comic-Con but that's not what delayed the post. What delayed the post was a overload at work. But now that things are slowing down a bit and I've gotten enough for a new chapter. I'm just going to let you guys read on from here.

* * *

Within the Tervho's medical bay, Palva had removed Lissarkh's bandages after complaining about the wrappings being too tight. Palva noticed Rang and Pyth getting closer with a strange silver orb. Without needing to turn to him, Palva simply asked Rang as he pasted her, "_Me'copaani, _Rang_? Bal n'vaabi sirbu naas_," Palva only spoke in Mando'a around Rang and only when she wanted him to listen. 'What do you want, Rang? And don't say nothing.'

Rang started to play innocent with Palva as he started to toss the sphere between his hands. "Well then we just need Lissarkh's help with something."

This elder female turian has seen some interesting things with these four but she had also seen some of the things Rang does for 'fun'. "If someone else can help you with another one of your pranks then ask them. Otherwise…"

"Now calm down Palva. This isn't one of my pranks, I swear. Mandalorian honor." For Rang to say that convince her to hear him out.

But Rang was superseded by Pyth. "You see Miss Turian, we require a very strong willed individual with telepathic abilities. And before you bring it up, yes I am a telepath but it is only for communication purposes really. Jedi are more capable and can pear into minds." Pyth then grabbed the sphere from Rang, "Well, this isn't actually an individual."

Palva was willing to ignore the estranged professor's name for her as she started to take a closer look at the sphere. "Isn't that the Prothean artifact you guys took from Cerberus?"

Rang nodded with his usual silly grin, "Yep. And we're hoping the General's recovered enough to help uncover its secrets."

Palva turned around to look at the lizard lying on the bed. As interesting as it might be, Palva was always a medic first. "I'm sorry, she's still resting now. When she's not regrown her arm then it might be time to ask her."

Before Rang and Silis could turn around, a voice came from one of the beds. "I'll take a look at it." Lissarkh was now sitting up looking at the three of them.

Palva could only disagree with her patient, "Now listen, I don't know how medics were where you're from but I will not let any of my patients endanger their health no matter the reason."

Lissarkh's head started to move from side to side as she stared into Palva's eyes. Her stare seemed to be going through her and the metal floor. "I know my mental and physical abilities and limits. I am fine. The growing process will proceed without me."

Palva still disagreed, "I still don't think…"

"You have a painful past." Lissarkh interrupted.

"What?"

"You once were a part of a medic team that operated within a scouting fleet." Lissarkh was using the powers of the Force to 'read' her memories. "You were rather happy with that life; you aided your people and you had a few 'escapades' with some of the crew in your youth."

Palva tried to resist but it was too strong for her, "Stop…please stop this…"

Lissarkh heeded the turian's request as she bowed her head to Palva, "I apologies for what I did, but I wanted to show you that I am more than capable of completing the task the clone commando wants of me. I understand the risks I am partaking, but this is my decision. You may feel that you are 'responsible' for me but do not." Lissarkh gave Palva a menacing glare waited for her to leave.

As Palva left, Rang shuttered just from see Lissarkh's stare Palva down. "Did you have to do that to her s…ma'am? I mean, it seemed rather harsh."

Lissarkh did not respond to the commando, having felt the pain that echo within the aged turian. With that distraction done, Lissarkh reached out with her right arm as Silis cupped her hand to let the sphere fly off and head towards the Jedi. With the sphere now in hand, Lissarkh started to focus on the sphere. Neither she, nor any know Jedi before her have ever tried to 'read' a machine, but soon Lissarkh learned it was no ordinary machine. As she started to reach out to the orb, the orb did the same. The orb started glow brightly as Lissarkh's eyes glowed in a bright blue hue. For several seconds this continued before the orb dimmed down and fell into her lap as she closed her eyes, shaking her head.

Pyth was interested and asked the Jedi, "Well, what was it like?"

The Trandoshan started rubbing her temple as she tried to sort things out, "It's difficult to describe. It was like a flood of information forced its way into my mind. I was not prepared for so much knowledge at first but soon…I was taking it in."

Rang though he knew of a parallel to what just happened. "So it's like flash training but a whole lot faster, am I right?"

Lissarkh was still trying to find her focus, "Somewhat…" The Jedi was having a hard time trying to describe it, "These aren't memories from an individual, more like a vision…a vision of the past." Lissarkh was suddenly stricken by a sever migraine. Before Rang could do anything the pain slowly started to go away. Lissarkh stopped the clone, "No. I'll be fine. I just need more rest and time to let these images find their place. I will detail as much as I can with you later Professor Silis."

Rang wasn't sure if doing this was a good idea any more but the look on Pyth's face was otherwise as she continued to write down notes about the recent events.

* * *

Down in engineering, Rasen constantly monitored the astromech droid and all of her movements while still keeping everyone else in line. Truthfully, R4-C3 has proven to be a worthy addition to the crew, even finding ways to bolster the defensive capabilities of the ship's kinetic barrier. Rasen still didn't like it. She needed a distraction and she found Forta working on a side project. "Forta. You seem busy with something. Do you need my help?"

The segregated batarian had grown a rather fawned attachment to Sigma Squad, Tare'Nara, Kixritvira and Rasen. He still kept his distance from others but after a year and a half he was starting to like this group as a whole. "Yeah, I wanted to make a unique omni-tool for the mobile trashcan looking thing so it can help properly."

"Oh."

Forta wasn't sure what the matter was but after being with them for so long, he could tell just by her tone. "What's wrong? Did I say something?"

Rasen quickly tried to change topics, "No, no, it's not you it's…how's everything been. I mean, I know how the ship is but you do some 'interesting' experiments in your room."

Forta was starting to see what was going on. "Is this about the new guys and the machine they have?"

Rasen felt ashamed of how she's been acting recently, especially around the Sigmas. "I'm sorry…it's just, how can they be so willing to trust an A.I.? I mean the pilot seems to have absolute faith in it."

Forta thought about the situation and everything that's happened since the others arrived. "Well, I've seen you keep a close eye on it whenever you can, and a majority of the time it just stays in the hangar next to the wreck. Have you seen it do anything that looked dangerous?"

Rasen looked back at everything she had seen and even when the little droid didn't know she was there, it only helped out. The droid never even faltered in carrying out orders given to it by others, either Dagger and Swoop or any other Mandalorian. "Well, no but how do we know if…"

Forta then spoke his mind, "I think I understand why you and your people hate A.I. but from how Rang and the others keep saying, it sounds more like your people panicked and attacked them to try and hid what they thought was a mistake. I may be over thinking this but, you should at least give this one a chance. It's rather clever mechanic."

Rasen looked down at the girders, "Do you really think it's that simple?"

Forta shrugged. "We work on complicated things all of the time. Sometime we need to look at things at a simple level. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. All I know is they trust it and I haven't see anything that proves otherwise."

"I don't know Forta, I just don't know…"

Forta started to lean on the same railing Rasen was on. "Then think of it this way. It's not a geth. It hasn't done anything against you, Tare, your people or your ancestors. So in a way, it's the same as when you first met Sigma Squad."

Rasen really didn't want to view C3 as another one of the crew, let alone an individual person. "I'll try but I doubt that'll work."

Forta just turned to her and said, "In the end, that's all one can do."

* * *

With the long transit coming to an end, the Normandy SR-2 had arrived to Illium in search of two more potential crew members, the 'Justicar' and the 'Assassin'. As Shepard took Mordin and Miranda to explore Illium, Kasumi decided to make a visit to the folk down in engineering. As the door opened up, Kasumi had a smile underneath her hoody as she waved directly to the clone commando, "Long time no see Prudii. So how have you been since that job?" Prudii tilted his head slightly and moved it from side to side. Kasumi could tell he was fine. "So you grumpy goose, why weren't any of the other Mandalorians with you on Haestrom?"

Prudii continued to stand there like a statue when he finally told her, "It was because of a job."

The thief knew better after working with them, even if it was only once. "Don't tell me that. You four with the same armor never go anywhere without one of you, unless…" Prudii looked away towards the drive core. "Oh…I see, I won't spoil a thing if it's like that."

Tali was starting to get curious about what the two of them were talking about. But Kenneth beat her to it, "What in blazes are you two talking about? Are you two speaking in code or are you both loony?"

Kasumi could only smile as she said, "Oh we're just talking about a game." She turned back to Prudii and simply told him as she left them, "Good luck."

Tali looked to Prudii who seemed slightly distracted by something. "Prudii?"

He quickly threw himself back into reality as he turned to her, "Yeah?"

"…Never mind…"

* * *

It felt like an hour since Shepard left the ship before something interesting happened. He planned on finding a particular assassin, Thane Krios. That required them to wait for nightfall, when shift workers were leaving. Shepard had returned to the ship to change squad mates, he requested the aid of Garrus and Tali, which prompted the lone Mandalorian to join as well. They met with the asari, Seryna, in a parking lot when she noticed the extra body.

"You do realize the shuttle can't hold all of us?"

Prudii simply told her, "I'll follow close behind." He activated the nearby terminal and another X3M pulled over and opened up.

Seryna still wasn't sure about this idea. "Then what happens to your ride when we get there?"

"Leave it. Tow it. Blow it up. I don't care. Just a rental."

Seryna entered hers as Shepard and Garrus joined her. Tali then made a suggestion, "I could go with Prudii. To…even things out."

Shepard didn't seem to mind. "Keep in radio contact."

"We will."

* * *

Prudii stayed close to Seryna's skycar as he listened in on Shepard's conversation with Seryna through Tali's comm. As the conversation between the two continued Prudii heard Dantius and Nassana. "Nassana Dantius? We're not saving her, right?"

Tali turned to ask the clone, "Why? I know she's heartless but still, did she do something in particular?"

Prudii told his passenger, "She used us. Trade negotiations a few months ago. At least, that's what we were told. When we arrived, the others were under the impression Nassana was giving them something. We talked, things didn't go anywhere. They tried to kill us, we killed them all. Araniik didn't even return to her to get the payment."

The two skycars pulled up to the bottom of the second tower still under construction. Prudii and Tali got out of theirs as Garrus and Shepard stepped out of Seryna's. Before the asari left, she gave him a warning before telling the Commander, "Good luck, Shepard."

As Seryna left, a scene unfolded in front of the group. On the other side of glass, a salarian worker was cowering behind an unfinished beam as a second one was running away from something. Soon the one cowering started to run but was soon shot through the chest by a LOKI mech. The second salarian looked back to the down salarian but soon realized he would be done for if he didn't move as well. The LOKI mech that shot the first salarian then shot the second one in the shoulder region. As the mechs passed the glass, their sensors detected Shepard and the others. The LOKI mechs turned, with the one LOKI reloading its M-4 Shuriken, and the FERIS mechs charged toward the glass.

Prudii pulled his pistol out and fired at the glass. With a single shot the glass shattered. Now the mechs were left out in the open. Prudii fired three shots at the first LOKI mech, taking out both arms and head, as Garrus used the Mantis sniper rifle to remove the second LOKI's head. Shepard and Tali opened fire on two FERIS mechs before they could endanger anyone. With those immediate threats terminated, Prudii moved on ahead with pistol in hand as he scanned the area and checked the salarian's pulse. "He's gone." Prudii looked around for the second one. Instead he found a blood trail leading away from the area.

Shepard and his group were close behind him as they found the second salarian. He had leaned himself against the wall as he bled profusely. "Help…"

Prudii was examining him. He found the shot, it was lodged into his shoulder but it passed through an artery. "He's alive. Barely."

"I can't feel my legs…" he was now clutching at his heart now, "my chest is killing me."

Shepard asked the injured worker, "Who did this to you? And why?"

The salarian was still in shock from the recent events, "We're just night workers! Nassana…sent them after us… She sent the mechs to round us up, but we didn't hear… They just started shooting…"

"They just attacked you?"

The salarian looked into Shepard's eyes as he recalled the moments, "Yes…we were too slow. It was horrible. Everyone…screaming… The mercs said there was no time. Nassana wanted us out of the way…immediately. Then…" the salarian started to cough up blood as he tried to continue, "the dogs…"

Tali couldn't stand seeing the salarian suffer like that. "He needs medical attention, Shepard."

"I can't breathe…please…"

Prudii activated his omni-tool and started to apply a medi-gel onto the salarian's injury. Prudii also pulled out a strange looking patch from his pack with four glowing light blue orbs attached by string. The commando then placed the patch over the injury and the medi-gel. "There. Should help with the pain. You'll be alive for the real medics."

The salarian could feel the two different medical items working. "Thank you. That helps…a lot."

Prudii moved under one of his arms as he helped the salarian up, "Here."

"I think I'm…better…" The salarian turned to Shepard as he told him, "Find the other workers. Help them."

Before Prudii helped him find a good hiding place, Shepard asked the worker a few questions. "I need to get up to the penthouse. Any suggestions?"

The salarian pointed off into the building, "Take the service elevator to the upper floors. The bridge between the towers isn't finished, but if you're careful… Watch out for the mercs. They're everywhere."

Prudii wanted a threat estimate, "How many mercs?"

The salarian wasn't sure on exacts, "A lot. Dozens of them were wandering around here all day. You'll find more the further up you go."

Shepard wanted a sense as to why Nassana did this, "Why would Nassana kill her own workers?"

The salarian was all too familiar with the answer. "To her, we're expendable. But…I didn't realize she was that ruthless. My friends…co-workers…slaughtered. They were jumping off ledges to escape the dogs…"

Garrus had moved to unlock the door. Shepard then told the salarian, "I'll do what I can for the others."

"Thank you." Prudii then helped the salarian move to a quiet place to rest.

Prudii told them as he walked off, "Go on ahead. I'll catch up." Prudii placed him down in a small outcrop where he found more medical supplies. "This should help too." Prudii was about to follow Shepard when he found another path.

* * *

Garrus was scanning the area. "Not too bad. A pair of LOKI mechs, two Eclipse. But that's just from this viewpoint."

Just before Shepard and the others were about to engage the Eclipses, the sounds of pipes and beams falling started to come from the other side of the area. LOKI mechs and FERRIS mechs moved to investigate. An Eclipse Vanguard along with two Eclipse troops were already trying to find the cause of the falling equipment when the mechs arrived. The Vanguard turned to the machines as he told them, "False alarm. Probably a rat or something scurryin' up there. Get back to your posts."

The mechs turned around, returning to their patrols. The Vanguard stopped, thinking he saw something up in the rafting. He tried to get a better look into the dark corners of the scaffolding. Before he could activate his omni-tool's flashlight an almost invisible wire had wrapped itself around his neck when something violently pulled him up. The shotgun fell to the ground with a loud clank against the floor, startling the two Eclipse mercs.

"The assassin! Don't let him escape!" The two mercs tried to find where the killer was. As the duo moved into to find him, they were immediately pounced upon by a black armored humanoid as blades were pulled out of the wrist gauntlets and jabbed into their backs.

The simple mechs detected the unidentified individual as the LOKI's stated, "Hostiles detected." And moved in. The black figure's only distinguishing feature that pulled him out of the shadows was his blue T shaped visor that stared directly at the machines. Before the LOKI or FERRIS mechs could attack the black figure, it disappeared from their sensors. "Target lost."

* * *

**A/N: **Don't worry, the Mandalorians will find something to occupy themselves until Prudii calls. Now personally, I alway did every dossier avaliable before doing the loyalty missions or any 'side mission' for the upgrades. This is going to be a twist of fun in this construction site. I got so caught up writing out the fight I didn't realized I'd oversteped my preferred word count(sorry you just have to wait until the next chapter to read it). That wire Prudii used against the Vanguard was a garrote: A garrote is a length of cord, fabric, or any other pliable material with high tensile strength. In Prudii's line of work a tool like this would be invaluable, that and it doesn't have that distinct humming a vibroblade does(yes I forgot to mention the humming in the chapters they are used, I'll back track and add them in soon).

**Mando'a Translation: **Hey one sentence is better then nothing.

Me'copaani, Rang? Bal n'vaabi sirbu naas.(Meh ko-PAH-nee, rahng? bahl nay-VAH-bee SEER-boo nahs)- What do you want, Rang? And don't say nothing.


	37. Another day, Another job

**A/N: **Update time.

* * *

Garrus turned to Tali and Shepard after hearing the rather blatant mech's statement, "Sound's like Prudii already started the party. I think it's only courteous if we crash it."

Entering the area they found all of the Eclipse were focused on, what was believed to be, Prudii's position. Shepard was lining up a shot against one of the FERRIS mechs when four shot rang out in succession as the blue vapor trails found their way to four LOKI mech heads and destroyed them.

"There he is! Don't let him escape!" The Eclipse moved in and started to rush over to where the mechs were destroyed. As they did the mercs left their flank wide open.

Garrus to this golden opportunity and sniped the back of one of the mercs. Tali also used Prudii's distraction and took down one of the mercs with a close-quarters blast of her shotgun. Shepard gunned down one of the LOKI mechs before it could turn around and face them. The LOKI and FERRIS turned to the closer hostiles and tried to remove them.

Tali quickly hacked into one of the FERRIS mechs and all of the other mechs turned on it. Prudii hadn't stopped moving as he destroyed a pair of FERRIS mechs that tried to attack him, blasting one through its faceplate with a volley of pistol shots and luring the other into a charge leading to a very long drop down to the foundation of the building. Shepard and his team took position into an incomplete office as the Eclipse started to focusing on them. Prudii too used one of the unfinished offices as he surveyed the enemy. Basic combat tactics, a Vanguard was positioned near a deactivated elevator and two Eclipse grunts were taking cover behind some construction material as the mechs move in to try and flush Shepard's team out. It could have worked if the Mandalorian wasn't a problem.

As the mechs continued their push the mercs took cover. Prudii saw his chance; the commando activated the cloak as he started to run. He jumped a small gap between him and the last Vanguard. Prudii's cloak held its own during his jump and as the Vanguard tried to find the source of him landing, the Mandalorian grabbed the Vanguard's shotgun and pointed it toward the abyss as he pulled the merc into an extended vibroblade. The blade pierced part of the armor but the sonic emitters traveled through the blade, ruptured his stomach and several arteries. The Eclipse saw this and turned to attack the lone assailant. But from their positions they were only hitting the, now deceased, Vanguard. Prudii used this, turning the dead Vanguard around and aimed the shotgun at the other Eclipse mercs and mechs.

Prudii knew all too well the weapon would only do superficial damage at best from the distance the Eclipse mercs were at but it was only a distraction to give Shepard and the others an opening to flank them. And as expected they did, Tali hijacked a LOKI mech and used a Phalanx pistol and it's laser sight to gun down another LOKI. As the hacked LOKI occupied the attention of the other mechs Garrus lined up his scope on one of the Eclipse Troopers before pulling the trigger and putting a small hole into his helmet. Shepard riddled the last trooper with holes from his M-15 Vindicator. With the mechs gathered in one localized point, Prudii tossed the body aside and pulled out one of the grenades he showed Shepard back on the Normandy. Prudii activated the charged and used an underhand toss. The grenade bounced into the center of them before it detonated. Unlike a normal grenade, this one radiated a four meter pulse of blue energy that overloaded the mechs. After a few seconds of this strange electrocution, the mechs fell to the ground, completely disabled.

Garrus was the first to venture out as Prudii grabbed the used grenade shell and ripped the heads off the LOKI mechs. "Something the matter, Prudii?"

The commando then stomped his boot into the FERIS mechs, "Nope. Rule 17."

The group continued on to the point Prudii entered. It led to a small walkway up a level and a door. After the door open a banging sound echoed for a moment. An Eclipse merc that was in an upper level heard it and called it in. "Hey—I think he went in here."

His comm. was rather loud as the mercs could hear by the group. The woman over the comm. was telling him, "Well, go get him."

The Eclipse merc countered, "You go."

The woman seemed ticked at him as she told him, "Get your ass in there. Nassana's not paying you to stand around."

"Fine…but I…" he grunts as the echoes of punches stared to resound. The sound of air gasping out of the man was heard for a moment before sudden sounds of a falling object echoed down the pipe. The Eclipse merc came crashing down, falling into a slump, his body was limp, bones snapped, as the body fell into an unnatural position.

Prudii looked over the dead man and as he did he found a mark on his neck. "Krios." Prudii turned to Shepard, "He's racing against us. Seeing who gets to Nassana first. Tempted to kill her before he gets there."

The Commander asked the clone, "How can you tell?"

Prudii pointed up, "The noise. He wants us to known. I've seen Krios' work, after the fact. He's a shadow. A true assassin. Doesn't like to go guns blazing. Prefers to kill his target without anyone realizing it." Prudii then looked around at the area ahead. "No other way. Going to have to fight through." Shepard and the others were taking positions behind pillars as they tried to find Eclipse mercs and the mechs.

* * *

Things were starting to get quiet once more on the Mandalorian ship. Rang was looking through their business email hoping to find any new jobs. "A basic bounty job from Eclipse…a hit job against the Blood Pack from the Blue Suns…a politician wants 'loose ends cut'…here's something."

Rang tend to check the mail near navigation. Tare turned to him as expected as he asked the clone, "What's something?"

"Here. We've got a job posting that wants us to investigate a lost mine out in the Minos Wastelands." Before he continued Aran and Aay'han had walked into the CIC. "Hey bosses, I got a job we might be interested in."

Aran told him, "Lay it out."

"Right the fun part, until I get to blow something up." Rang looked back at the email to find the bits of information he needed, "OK, we got a cooperation that wants discretion. Meaning they don't want official help or the press in on this. They lost contact with an operation in the Fortis system about a month and a half ago."

Aay'han turned to Aran as Rang continued with his wild speculations, "This the kind of job your team gets?"

"Sometimes we just stand around for security."

Rang got his brother's attention, "Oh and boss man, they're willing to pay us in advance as long as we can verify we're in the Fortis system. And I have to say this is a rather unusual sum. Five thousand, and that's the down payment."

Aran seemed bothered by something. "What company is it? I'm not working with ExoGeni again. Not after that last job."

Rang laughed, "It was only one job. But no, I don't think it's ExoGeni. Not their kind of shtick. It's a mining op. I'm thinking the jobs from Merida Industria or the EAE. We could always ask Bev or Ras to try and back hack the account."

Aran then asked his brother, "Still nothing from Prudii?"

"Come on bro, everyone on the ship would know about it if he did."

Aran looked over the CIC's galaxy map. "Alright, we'll send an investigation team to scout it out first." Aran turned to Aay'han, "We're going to be reversing rolls during this mission, think you can handle it?"

The former advisor chuckled at the notion, "I've had a lot of practice."

* * *

Having fought through a large wave of Eclipse and their mechs, Shepard and the others were searching the area. Prudii was rolling some of the Eclipse mercs down the abyss of the building as Tali deactivated the security system in the next area. Garrus had found a M-97 Viper sniper rifle in a back area near a terminal and medical supplies. Shepard found a locked closet near the elevator they needed to take up. He waited for the others to come to him before unlocking the door. Garrus readied his sniper rifle as Tali activated her omni-tool. Prudii climbed onto the crates placed curiously next to the door, he activated his cloak with weapon at the ready.

Shepard unlocked the door and pulled out his pistol. When the door finally opened completely the room was occupied by three salarian workers. The moment the doors unlocked the three salarians were cowering away. The one in yellow to the right started to beg, "Please…don't kill us! We'll go…we'll go…"

The salarian in the middle noticed they weren't dead yet, also, "Hey, look…they're not Eclipse. You're here to help us…right?"

Shepard replied to the scared workers as he and the other holstered their weapons, "It's one reason I'm here. Come on out. It's safe enough."

Prudii jumped down from the crates and kept an eye out for any other Eclipse merc they might have missed. As Shepard got information from the salarians, Prudii listened in but he didn't hear anything new from them then from the injured worker one floor down. Shepard peeked Prudii's interest to in listening when he asked the workers, "How many workers were in the tower? Are there many more of you?"

The salarian in the middle morbidly replied, "Not alive. We were lucky."

The salarian in the yellow garment was being hopeful, "Well, some got out before the dogs were sent in. Maybe a few are hiding somewhere."

Shepard then advised the three salarians to leave. "I wouldn't stay here too long. It should be safe down on the lower floors."

The salarian worker with the yellow clothing agreed, "I was just thinking the same thing. Let's go, everybody."

The salarian who with the morbid response from before stopped to tell Shepard a few things. "Thank you. And tell your assassin to aim for her head. …'cause she doesn't have a heart!"

The salarian who seemed to be the leader of the group turned around and yelled at his coworker, "Get moving."

As the two salarians past Prudii, he then told them, "There's an injured worker downstairs. We aided him. You should find him."

Returning to the main area, Shepard tried to activate the elevator. Garrus noted as the elevator started to come down, "We're a little exposed out here, especially if anyone's in that elevator."

Shepard agreed, "I was just thinking the same thing myself, Garrus."

"Well…there's no lack of cover."

As the squad moved to better cover, Prudii climbed up behind some crates, waiting for whatever was in the elevator. He steadied the bowcaster at the elevator entrance as he charged his first shot. The elevator VI soon announced before opening the door, "Mezzanine. Have a pleasant stay."

In no time a voice soon shouted before the elevator could open up, "Come out and fight!" The voice belonged to a krogan, odd seeing as Eclipse normal recruitment pools are from humans, asari and salarians. Once the doors opened it became clear, this krogan seemed to have been freelancing, either for Nassana directly or with the Eclipse. Shepard had pulled out a strange looking weapon Prudii had not seen before. The weapon charged for two seconds, as it charged the two Eclipse Engineers deployed combat drones. Before any of them could leave the elevator Shepard launching an electric jolt from the black weapon that jumped around the five targets and continually zapped the group, destroying the drones and draining the shields on all three targets all in a matter of seconds.

Prudii saw his opening and fired the charged quarrel at the closest Engineer. The quarrel flew true to its target, landing the exposed female's cranium, the charged shot pinned her head to the floor. The cocking mechanism automatically pulled a second quarrel into position and Prudii fired at the second Engineer, sending her to a fall with a small hole in the side of her head. Garrus fired his sniper rifle at the krogan, braking part of his armor plating. Tali fired a few rounds from the Phalanx aiding Garrus in his attack against the krogan. Shepard quickly switched his weapon for his Vindicator assault rifle. With this coordinated strike from three fronts, the krogan was almost finished. During the assault Prudii was charging his bowcaster. Prudii used the supercharged quarrel and pinned the krogan's left arm to a stack of crates. Prudii jumped down from his position and continued to move toward the krogan as he continued to fire quarrel after quarrel into it, not giving him time to aim his Carnifex heavy pistol or recover from the assault. Each shot found it way past the armor plating, using the breaks between the plates to his advantage. After eight shots into the krogan, Prudii extended both vibroblades and jabbed them into the krogan, one was aimed at his head, and the other landed in between both hearts. The vibration from the blades ruptured the organs, killing the brute from the inside. As Prudii pulled out the blades, the orange blood was covering his blade and part of his fist. The Commando promptly shock most of the blood onto the floor. The team now quickly moved into the elevator, making sure there were no Eclipse were following, Shepard activated the elevator and the doors closed. Now they had to wait until they reached the next area.

* * *

Reaching the planet, the Tervho detected several strange reading, including life signs, alien even to the aliens on board. The first ones down were Aay'han, Rasen, C3 and the gunship crew with the medical team on standby. On the way down, Araniik gave the team a pep talk, "Alright team, no one has heard a peep from this facility in over a month now, no supply request, no nothing. I don't know what you should expect down their but…"

Aay'han, Dagger and Swoop simultaneously said with Araniik, "Hope for the best, expect the worst." The trio remembered the precepts Vhonte taught the four clone commando who in turn taught them.

Flying through the rock canyon, Swoop couldn't help but note the natural defenses around the mine. "These rocks make flight paths rather predictable."

"They're just painting us with a red target saying 'Shot them down!'."

Jak tried to ease the pilots' tension, "And that's why you have us. Ain't that right Rook?" Rook simply replied to his partner with a thumbs up.

Once on the ground, Aay'han investigated the area first while Dagger and the other clones each grabbed a DC-15S. As Aay'han looked he heard a strange screeching sound coming from the tunnel itself. This prompted the clone to aim his WESTAR down the opening. Aran checked on their status, "Away team report. What's the situation down there?"

Aay'han didn't respond immediately but he eventually calmed himself to answer. "Everything here's too quiet. Something's wrong." The others, now ready to move, followed Aay'han as he investigated the area around the tunnel entrance.

The group came across skeletal remains of someone. This prompted Jak to saying, "Poor sod. What do you think happened to him?"

Rook moved in to examine the body. "I don't see plasma burns. No visible bite marks or broken bones. The corpse is too clean, undamaged." Rook then picked up the skull. "Wait… Found it. A single shot in the head. From the entry wound it looks like he did himself in. Add the decay factor and that should be…"

"Thirty to fifty galactic standard days, minimum," IM-6 stated as she floated over to Rook's shoulder and examined the remains herself.

"The timeframes about rights…" Aay'han still couldn't shake off the feeling they were being watched. "IM-6, I don't think a medics services are required for this mission any longer. Go back to the gunship and keep us posted for any changes. Rook, watch our six."

The little medical droid didn't argue against him as it floated back to the gunship and awaited the clones to finish their mission. As the squad moved into the tunnel they saw a humanoid figure in the shadows of the flickering lights.

Swoop couldn't help but say what the others were thinking, "Think it's a friendly?"

"There's only one way to find out. Sir! Excuse me, sir!" As Aay'han tried to move closer C3 sped up and rolled up in front of him, blocking his path, whistling. Aay'han couldn't understand the little droid as she tried to stop him. "Hey, what's the matter?"

As C3 continued to beep and whistle when Dagger started to pick up what she was saying. Dagger took aim at the figure prompting Rasen to intervene, "What are you doing? We're here to help them!"

Dagger wasn't going to move her but he was going to explain. "Listen miss, C3 said she's detecting the same signature here as she did on that colony we helped. And they're not the bugs."

Aay'han steadied his rifle, "How certain are you, C3?"

The droid whistled. Dagger translated again, "One hundred percent, sir!"

"Troopers! Open fire!" With that order, Dagger, Swoop and Jak joined Aay'han as they gunned down the humanoid shadow from a distance. A flurry of blue bolts flew across the tunnel striking the body. The flashes of blue did not help reveal the identity of this individual but after twelve shots from the clones the humanoid finally fell over. Aay'han moved to take a closer look on the thing as Swoop moved up with him.

The squad was only using local channels, so Araniik had no clue as to what was happening yet. "Advisor, come in. Someone talk to me. What's going on down there?"

"Give us a few more seconds…" Aay'han flipped the body over into the light, and he saw the same thing he did on Horizon. "Blast. Araniik, this is Aay'han. We've got husks here. I don't know how many but we've already encountered and kill one."

Concerned, the commando then asked, "What about Collectors, or geth? Have you guys encountered anything else?"

"Negative. Just a corpse outside the tunnel. We're going to try and push in further."

"Not without reinforcements you're not." Aran started to call out his crew, "Rang, Kix, Bev, Vren, Nyona, Tare, Forta, we're going in."

* * *

**A/N: **First off, the EAE is Eldfell-Ashland Engery, Rang didn't say that part only because he and Aran were familiar enough with the company that he didn't need to say it. Second, yes I do think someone(not saying anyone high up though) might pay people like the Mandalorians to investigate the sudden loss of communication with one of their sites(though they need a lot of money to pay them). I skipped that one fight on Illium because it was straight forward and I wasn't willing to write it out(so sue me, sorry for the attitude if you think it is one).

**Mando'a Translation:** Man I need to start using Mando'a again.


	38. Scout's Honor

**A/N: **Yeah, I've got nothing to say up here. Move along. Move along.

* * *

As Shepard and his team left the elevator they stumble across a lone Eclipse merc talking with his boss over his helmet's radio. He continued to pace next to a glass window overlooking the other tower. They quietly moved up behind the merc without him noticing a thing as he continued his conversation with the other, "We don't need any reinforcements. I'll take care of it. It's under control. I'll go down there myself."

Everyone readied their weapons, Prudii had his bowcaster as Garrus targeted the merc's head with his sniper rifle and Tali powered up her omni-tool. As soon as the merc turned off his radio, Shepard gave the merc one warning, "Turn around, very slowly."

As the merc did, he knew he was screwed. "Damn it."

Shepard then asked the merc, "Have you seen the assassin?"

As Shepard moved closer the merc stepped back answering with his own question, "Why are you looking for him? You're not one of Nassana's mercs. Who are you?"

Prudii moved forward in front of Shepard as he tossed back the bowcaster behind him. Prudii was now helmet to helmet with the merc, "Answer the questions, and I'll let you walk. _Haat_."

The merc wasn't in the mood for talking, "Look pal, even if I knew where he was I wouldn't tell you."

Prudii wasn't too pleased with the answer, "Not looking good for your life expectancy."

The merc was overly confident he was going to live as he leaned against the glass, "Look, I've got nothing more to say to you, or your friend. If you shoot me, my team's right through there… they'll be all over you."

Prudii was tempted to end his life now but he didn't see the point. Instead, the commando used his intimidation to make the merc talk. Prudii rushed the merc with his left arm across his chest. The merc barley had the time to react as his right arm tried to stop him but to no avail, only adding his right arm to the pin against his neck. Now the merc was pinned to the glass and the force Prudii used only caused a few cracks in the window. As Prudii continued to apply enough pressure to keep the merc against the glass, it continued to make cracks. Prudii extended the vibroblade on his right gauntlet then gave the merc his ultimatum as he started to drag the vibrating blade close to the cracking glass, "Die now, or die much later. Chose."

The merc tried to swallow as Prudii continued to push him against the glass, "I…uh…OK, look…" Prudii started to ease up but continued to keep the merc pinned as he talked, "last I heard, the assassin was down on the mezzanine. But the teams on the bridge think they might've spotted him. Nobody knows for sure."

Prudii slammed the merc's head against the glass before finally releasing him telling him, "Get out."

The merc raised his hands as he walked straight toward the elevator telling them, "I'm going." The merc kept his hands raised until he was inside the elevator and activated it to go down.

As the elevator started to leave, Garrus turned to Prudii, "He owes you one. Anybody else would have killed him.

Prudii simply replied to Garrus as he grabbed his DC-17m and the assault rifle components, "_Ijaa_. I gave him my word; he talked so he lived. I have to keep my word. Honor demands it." As Prudii moved to the door right of the elevator, he found an OSD left on the floor. He examined the data and found it had the family history for a salarian lineage, the Kirosa family. Remembering how some of the salarian crew talked about how important this kind of information was Prudii stashed the data into his pack, hopefully he might encounter one of the Kirosa members and give it to them.

* * *

As the Mandalorian shuttle touched down next to the mine, Araniik found the medical droid IM-6 waiting next to the gunship. Araniik demanded answers from the droid, "IM-6, where are Dagger and the others?"

IM-6 politely answered the clone, "Dagger and the others are five meters within the mine awaiting your arrival."

Aran turned to the others, "_Shaadla dayn traat'aliit_."

As they slowly moved into the small confined tunnel, the squad heard a clicking of rocks. Aran threw up his fist, ordering the squad to hold position and ready their weapons. Soon a voice shouted out, "_Tion'cuy_?" The voice obviously belonged to one of the clones but the voice wasn't taking any chances.

Aran answered, "RC-2473."

The clone then demanded, "_Kemir dayn werda_."

Aran attached his DC to his leg and walked step by step out with his hands in the air. Aran heard the weapon click next to his head, but he did not flinch as he asked, "Mind not pointing that at me?"

Aay'han quickly lowered his WESTAR, "Wasn't taking any chances. After you said you were coming down those boltbrains tried to ambush us. The only reason we were ready was because of C3. The astromech seems capable of detecting them before they appear."

Aran saw one of the corpses, "Find anything else so far?"

Aay'han pointed to a bench off to the other end of the small cavern pocket, "Besides a warning left by some poor sod, and the mineral stash, nothing."

Suddenly a voice started to echo within their minds, _Troopers, I have dire news you need to hear._

Everyone started to look around except for Aran and the other clones. Nyona was trying to find the sources of the voice when she asked them, "Where is that coming from?"

Rang quickly answered her with a pun, "_An o'r gar kovid_."

Aay'han responded, "We hear you General. What's the matter?"

Lissarkh explained,_ Arriving to this system I started to feel a disturbance in the Force, whispers beyond the ship's hull. Now that we have situated ourselves over the planet I can hear them clearly. Whatever these whispers are they are deep within the mine you are investigating. You mustn't stay down there too long or else the whispers will find their way into your minds. The whispers are tempters, trying to make you do its bidding by offering more. Whatever is causing these whispers cannot be allowed to survive._

Now a new voice started to speak. Professor Pyth, _And Aay'han if it's at all possible, I'd like a few pictures to be taken, if the voices do in deed come from a device, before you destroy it. The whispers are starting to get on my nerves, odd as that may sound of me being that I tend to do that to others. Thank you!_

Aay'han turned to Araniik, "Well _vod_, the mission objectives have changed rather drastically."

The commando patted his brother's pauldron, "Just like old times." Aran turned to the others, "We should establish check points. Make sure none of these bastards leave alive. Kix, Rang, you two keep watch of the entrance. I don't want to see a husk so much as leave this tunnel."

Dagger turned to his crew, "Swoop, Jak, you two should stay with them to give fire support and also to ensure someone can fly the gunship out."

Rang started to joke around with the others about the situation, "OK, so long as I get to blow up the tunnel before we leave."

Aay'han then made a suggestion. "Hey Aran, I think this is a good check point. You should have four-eyes and the kid hold here."

Aran agreed with the idea, "Forta, Tare. You guys up to the job?"

Tare nodded, "I won't let you down."

Forta shrugged, "Alright."

With everything in place the team started to move deeper into the mine. Moving on C3 suddenly detected another one moving toward them. Dagger asked the droid, "Where's it coming from?" C3 reported as Dagger warned the others, "Up high!"

As Dagger shouted one of the husks suddenly dropped from one of the higher support beams. Not even giving the husk a chance to recover from landing, the team opened fire on the thing before it could land, causing it to slum down as it fell.

Aran signaled C3 and Dagger to move up along with Beviin as support. C3 stopped as she detected more husk coming toward them. "Bev!"

The commando grabbed for the Geonosian pike he hung on his belt. Out of the muck a group of husk had crawled up next to a pair of gas filled canisters. Dagger saw this and fired on the two containers first. The blast was strong but their metal skin was harder. The two closest to the blasts went down but there were still three more and they promptly started to charge them. One of them stood out from the rest, the metal was a blood red color as it seemed to have 'ignited' itself, ready to explode or something.

The trio fell back as the husks continued to charge them. Beviin radioed the others for support, "Nyona. We need a Biotic Throw. Aim for the red one."

From around the corner the two clones continued to slowly back up as R4-C3 rolled up to the others rather quickly. The others soon saw what Bev meant as the husks continued to run after them. Nyona quickly unleashed a Biotic Throw sending the red husk against the cave wall. The red husk wasn't slammed that hard against the rock but something must have caused it to explode. Once that was dealt with Beviin moved in with the extended pike and mercilessly started to attack both husks. The clone commando demonstrated why he was the close-quarter specialist as each blow was executed with precision. Beviin extended the pike to half its normal size as he blocked both husks' attacks. Beviin pulled out his vibroblade and, when the opportune moment opened, rammed the blade into one of the husks' throat as he extended the pike to its full size as it skewered the other husk through the jaw and skull. Bev threw the husk off his pike and turned to the others. "Droid. Do you detect any more husks nearby?"

R4-C3 started to beep as Dagger answered. "There are a few more up ahead but they haven't detected us or they aren't moving. She's also detecting a large concentration a few meters ahead of us."

Aay'han instinctively told the others as he readied his weapon, "Alright people, let's keep moving and keep your eyes open."

* * *

Back in Dantius Tower, after a raging battle against three Eclipse mercs and four mechs, one of the mercs, an Eclipse vanguard, was wounded badly but still alive. As the asari struggled to crawl to her shotgun, Prudii stepped on her spine. In an act of mercy the clone fire a single round at pointblank into the back of her skull splattering brain matter and purple blood onto his legging.

With the area cleared, Prudii noticed a locked door. As Shepard and Garrus checked the large area for any hidden Eclipse, Prudii used hand signals to ask Tali to unlock the door. As the quarian hacked the lock, the commando had his weapon at the ready for anything. Once unlocked, Tali moved out of the way as Prudii pressed the holo-button. Once the door fully opened he move in cautiously, only to find a dead Eclipse merc on the floor and another group of three salarians hiding further in. Prudii returned the rifle to his thigh the moment he saw them, despite his training as one of the salarians, the brown skinned one in the maroon clothing, had a pistol in hand. Prudii tried to calm the situation down by not acting like a thug. "Everyone alright?"

As Prudii expected, the salarian panicked and drew the pistol any way. The salarian was nervous and obviously had little training with weapons as he only held the pistol with his right hand and his arm would twitch slightly as he waived it at both Tali and Prudii. He started to shout at the duo, "Get back! Get back…I'll shoot."

Tali tried to calm the panicked salarian down, "Put the weapon down! We won't hurt you."

The salarian continued to dangerously swing the pistol as he quickly shifted between Prudii and Tali, "I don't want to hurt you…but I will. I said get back! I'll do it!" The salarian then pleaded with them as he lowered his head slightly, most likely out of terror, "Please…don't make me do it."

Prudii could see this salarian has never stained his hands with the blood of others. The commando look to Tali and used his private comm. channel, "Don't shoot. I've got this." Prudii turned back to the salarian and activated his helmet's speakers, "We're not the bad guys. You have a name?"

The salarian seemed hesitant but willing to respond, "I…I'm Telon. Don't…come any closer," quickly raising the pistol directed at Prudii now.

Prudii nodded, "Telon. I'm Prudii. Mandalorian." Prudii turned to Tali, "This is Tali. We're not with the Eclipse. And we're defiantly not with Dantius. I don't want to hurt you. We're here to help."

Telon finally lowered the pistol in relief and exhaustion, "I…all right…" Telon turned the pistol over to Prudii, "here… I…don't feel so…" Telon suddenly collapsed, probably from the stress.

The salarian behind Telon in white with an identical skin tone moved to the collapsed salarian as he shouted, "Telon!" Through sheer combat training, Prudii aimed the pistol that was handed to him onto Telon and the other. The salarian in white looked up to Prudii as he explained, "He's my brother. I just want to see if he's all right." Such a commotion didn't go unnoticed. Shepard and Garrus moved in to try and help, only to find the situation already under control. Telon's brother then asked Prudii, "Are you the ones who…shot the merc?"

Prudii understood the drive that would make one defend their siblings no matter the cost and he could see that is what Telon probably did. Prudii uncharacteristically holstered the pistol and turned to the dead Eclipse. He then asked, "No. Not my kill. Telon didn't?"

Telon's brother answered, "No. Telon was standing here with me."

Prudii didn't like this. He turned to the salarian and asked for details, "What happened?"

Telon's brother explained without hesitation, "The merc found us and shouted at us to move. We panicked, and he shouted more. I thought he was going to kill us…then…his head just exploded. Telon picked up the merc's gun, but we were too afraid to leave. Then you showed up."

Garrus then muttered, "A perfect headshot with no collateral damage. Very impressive."

Prudii moved to examine the dead merc, as he did he whispered to Shepard, "All yours." The Commander started asking Telon's brother questions, about the bridge and so on. Prudii found the entry wound was directly on top of the medulla oblongata. The shattering slug must have caused the blood that escaped the head to appear in a puff making the impression that his head 'exploded'. Prudii started to use the entry point and the blood stains on the wall to imagine what had played out. Prudii stood where the merc once did, he turned his head toward where the entry wound was relative to facing the salarians. Prudii started to us his left arm to aim as he tried to find the angle the sniper round was fired. Prudii saw the perfect location, about fifteen meters from that spot, near the door they entered, about fifty-five degrees left of his heart.

After Shepard had finished asking his questions, the Commander advised the workers to leave. "There are still mercs up here. You should get to the lower levels."

Telon's brother stood up as he was more than ready to leave. "No need to convince me." He then lowered his hand as he awakened Telon, "Telon…come one, get up."

Telon was back on his feet and the others could see the 'excitement' has taken its toll on him. Telon simply lowered his head as he asked his brother, "Can we go home now?"

Telon's brother quietly answered him, "Yeah, we're getting out of here." As Telon and the other worker walked out of the room, Telon's brother stopped to express his gratitude as he respectfully bowed his head, "Thank you." He too soon followed suit and walked toward the service elevator.

Moving on, Prudii found an open comm. station as Nassana continued to shout through it. "Where is everyone? Will somebody please give me a report!" Prudii walked up to it and activated it. Nassana noticed it and shouted at him thinking he's one of her mercs, "It's about time! What's going on down there?"

Prudii replied to her, "Sorry. Your men aren't able to respond, Nassana."

"Damn it!" She quickly killed the connection in fear of being back hacked. The commando has seen cowards like her back on Coruscant, most were politicians but there were a few crime bosses that were stupid enough to side with the Separatist and openly use it. Climbing up the incline, Prudii wasn't waiting for Shepard or the others for back up. Prudii hugged the wall toward the center, keeping himself out of sight of those who might be up there.

Shepard, Garrus and Tali eventually caught up with the clone but Prudii gave them a signal to wait. He cloaked himself before moving on. In the immediate area he spotted two LOKI mechs and an asari vanguard on patrol. They must have heard the commotion down stairs as the purple asari with tech armor was intently watching the ramp way. Prudii never liked showboating but this one instant might be a good thing. Prudii quickly moved to cover before his cloak deactivated. Now behind a pill of sheet metal, Prudii contacted Tali over their helmet channels. "Tali. Two LOKIs and an asari vanguard. Maybe more around the corner."

"We'll be right there to…"

Prudii cut her off, "Give me a few seconds. I'll deal with the asari and the mechs." Now that his cloak was ready again, Prudii activated it and quietly moved up behind the Eclipse. As he did, the commando spotted two more asari with shotguns waiting. Prudii was in a tight spot but he soon found his saving grace, the pillar obscured the view for the two other asari. Ready, Prudii grabbed this purple asari by her jaw with his left hand and pulled her back behind the pillar. Prudii extended the hidden vibroblade on his right gauntlet as she fell onto it. The blade penetrated the armor and cut into her. As the sonic vibrations emitted from the tip started to rupture a number of her vital organs and blood vessels, Prudii twisted the asari's neck to the right and snapped her neck.

As Prudii's cloak deactivated the LOKI mech sensors detect the unknown presence and opened fire. "Hostiles detected." Now Prudii was using the dead vanguard as a meat shield as he grabbed his DC-15s pistol and returned fire. Shepard and his team found Prudii as he was finishing the last LOKI mech with five shots; three to knock down the shield, one for the weapon arm and a final round through the faceplate.

Prudii stayed behind cover as he warned them, "Vanguards up ahead." But the asari were already trying to attack him, launching a series of Biotic attacks and shotgun rounds toward the commando. Prudii continued to hide behind the pillar as the attack did not make direct contact, smashing into the thick pillar.

As the two asari were occupied with attacking the lone commando, Shepard, Garrus and Tali had moved up ready to help out. Tali activated her omni-tool as she spawned her combat drone, "They're all yours Chiktikka!" The purple and pink combat drone started to zip through the air as it started to target the two vanguards. This distraction would cost both asari, as Prudii moved out from behind the pillar; Shepard and Garrus targeted the closest vanguard. As her biotic barrier started to buckle, Tali fired upon the other vanguard along with Prudii. Chiktikka was too fast for either merc to keep up and the sustained assault from the team eventually dropped both asari. With that out of the way, they were one step closer to finding Thane Krios.

* * *

**A/N: **I know most people just push the merc out the window for the funny scene but I always like the threat better, make the merc piss his pants. In the caverns, Aay'han did the right thing(situationally speaking) when asking for confirmation and he doesn't know that husks can't speak. Cut the team some slak, the only husks they've ever fought against were on the Citadel(Sigma Squad only) and Horizon(only the basic husks, Scions and Praetorians).Yes Prudii used the Assassin's Creed assassination, but come on it's an effective means of ending a life. I let Prudii handle Telon because of his brothers. So, I'm starting to get in a rut but I'll try to push through it.

**Mando'a Translation:** Finnally back into the swing of it and using the Mandalorian dictionary!

Haat, Ijaa(Haht, i-JAH)- Truth, Honor(words used to seal a pact)

Shaadla dayn traat'aliit.(SHAHD'la dain TRAHT-ah-LEET)- Move out team/squad.

Tion'cuy?(Tee-ON-coo-EE)- Who's that? (often used as a challenge to identify someone - like "Halt! Who goes there?")

Kemir dayn werda.(KEH-meer dain WAIR-dah)- Walk into the light. (Lit: Walk out of the darkness.)

An o'r gar kovid.(ahn ohr gahr KOV-eed)- It's all in your mind.


	39. A cave full of fun, and a windy bridge

**A/N: **Sorry for the wait, that black out was a pain. That and my Mircrosoft Word stopped working for me. I don't know, One second I'm working on one of my stories, the next all of the controls and the ability to type lock themselves. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling it but it doesn't seem to work. So I'm reduced to relying on my work computer to work on these. Which isn't alot(I'm only a part time worker so 2-3 hours if I'm lucky in a 5 day week). No I can't just use Abiword because it doesn't keep the line seperator that I use and LibreOffice doesn't keep 'ignore all' words like Word does until I type it after closing the doc. But enough with my drama, you want to keep reading this, thats the only reason you guys/gals return.

* * *

On the planet Aequitas, the Mandalorians had encounters husks similar to the ones on the colony Horizon. After another attempted ambush, foiled only by the astromech droid R4-C3, Vren and Aran were holding on a ramp way ensuring this choke point wouldn't get crowded in the event the others need a hasty retreat. As the others continued into the tunnel Beviin stopped. "_Vode_, does anyone hear that?"

Rasen couldn't hear anything, "Hear what, Bev?"

Dagger started looking around, "No I hear it too."

Rook really didn't like this, "Where the hell is it coming from?"

Nyona couldn't hear anything either, "What are you three blathering about?"

Aay'han started to hear something too, "It's kinda like a faint whisper, or a hum. It's just out of earshot, I can hear the music, but the words are just barely there. You want to know what its saying but…"

A voice soon cried out to them as the music suddenly stopped,_ Do not listen!_

"General!" shouted Aay'han as he turned around.

Lissarkh's voice continued to echo in their minds, _That is what I've warned you about, the tempers that will infect your mind. I will try to shield your minds until the device is destroyed, but I cannot do it for long. I am already straining myself to protect the professor and myself. Please hurry and destroy the source, Commander._

The four clones shook their heads to clear their minds. Aay'han then turned to Dagger, "Ask C3 how far we are from the device."

The small droid beeped and whistled for a few seconds then Dagger translated, "She detects a very powerful energy signature directly ahead of us. And she's detecting several husks surrounding this power source."

Nyona wanted specifics, "Numbers?"

C3 started to whimper and shake, "She detects at least eighty-seven active. She can't see anything else and that's getting her worried."

Beviin then made a suggestion, "Rasen, deploy your combat drone. See if you can lure them out." Rasen nodded and deployed the holographic blue and green ball. The drone moved out into the next large opening when the husks suddenly appeared. Two dropped for the ceiling near their entrance as others started to run from a deeper potion of the mine. Among the mindless beasts was one of the red 'sparking' husks ready to explode.

The squad opened fire against the husk as they tried to slash at the combat drone as it hovered just out of their reach. They picked off the normal husks first and finally targeted the red husk which exploded, taking the combat drone out with it. The squad quietly moved into the chamber and secured the area. C3 then pointed out a terminal situated next to a medical station. Rasen moved to investigate the computer while the other continued to look out for more husks.

As Rasen continued through the entries she found the ones that would shed light onto the events that happened, "Here we go. It seems the miners accidentally came across an 'alien machine'. They didn't know what it was but it seems some of their contacts confirmed that Elanus Risk Control Services were willing to pay plenty for it."

Nyona didn't like the sound of that, "Something's not right. The ERCS don't dabble with stuff like this."

Beviin speculated, "It's possible that they're doing this for another company on Noveria."

As Rasen continued to read the entries things started to become odd, "Bev, it seems your General was right. The artifact must have activated after they found it. Some of the miners said they saw the artifact glowing. The owner of this journal wasn't willing to confirm their claims but he did state that 'an awful pretty sound' was coming from the back room. That almost sounds like what you guys were saying." The commando didn't seem to want to express or explain what he heard. Rasen continued to read on when thing turned from odd to strange, "And this is when they lost it. The miners started to become ill but when they were near the machine they felt better. They even reconsidered selling it to the ERCS. Whoever this belonged to also started to lose grammatical sense."

Aay'han then told Rasen, "Check the dates. See when they were entered."

Rasen had to scour the data but she soon found the answer, "The last entry was dated…five weeks ago tomorrow."

Aay'han turned to the astromech, "C3 where's the device located?"

One of the panels on the top of C3's doomed head opened to reveal a retractable satellite dish. The dish spun around for a few seconds before the droid pulled it back in. She whistled and Dagger explained, "If we go through that opening in the wall," pointing to along the wall with the medical station, "we can get to the device in a matter of seconds. But seeing as how these things are drawn to it, the safer path would be up the ramp and to kill anything that gets in our way," turning to ramp at three o'clock from the opening he pointed out before.

Aay'han and Beviin did not like the situation now more than ever. Aay'han then started to shout orders, "Dagger, you and Rook stay here. Keep the husks from overrunning us and blocking our escape route. C3, stay close to me. Let's finish this."

Quietly moving up the ramp, Nyona was the first to reach to top as she looked out. She saw plenty of husks as they were just standing around. She could see that the miners had constructed a building around the device to protect it or something. As the droid's loud wheels rolled up the ramp the husks started to become more active. Nyona turned to the others and used the private comms, "Damn it! Shut that thing up or it'll get us killed!" C3 stopped but it was too late, the husks were alerted to something as they started to run around, searching for the source.

Aay'han grabbed his WESTAR-M5 and blasted one of the husks behind Nyona, "We've stirred up a mynocks' nest. All we can do now is fight back!"

* * *

Like a dinner bell, all of the husks within the mine that weren't already there started to run back to the device. Forta and Tare encountered a few of these husks as they pulled themselves from underneath the rubble. The duo opened fire but the husks had little interest in them. "Teams, this is Tare. We encountered a group of husks and they completely ignored us, as if we weren't even here."

There was a similar report from Aran, "Yeah we've got a few dropping from the ceiling. They don't seem to care if we take them out."

"Here they come!" Rook opened fire at the group of husk that hopped a small hurdle as they started to charge.

Dagger saw the one coming down the tunnel, "These guys aren't passing us alive!"

* * *

Nyona switched to the Katana shotgun and blasted the first husk that was too close and projected a Singularity field in the middle of the room. Rasen deployed another combat drone as Aay'han, Beviin and R4-C3 moved to destroy the device. As expected, once beyond the reach of the Singularity more husks started to crawl and drop into the small and confined space surrounding the device. Aay'han started to take as many down as he could but was force to start using his WESTAR as a bat. He shouted at the droid, "C3, scan that device, quickly! Get a video copy too and tell us when you're done!"

Beviin had dropped his pack as he extended one of his force pikes to its proper size. Bev started to use the pike as a staff and spear, striking back the husks while occasionally thrusting one end through their abdomen or head. This gave Aay'han more space as he shot down the red ones or the few husks that were out of Bev's reach.

C3 circled the device a few times as her holorecorder and sensors scanned the device thoroughly. When her readings were complete the red and blue droid whistled as she rolled off back to Rasen and Nyona. Beviin saw this and radioed to the others, "The astromech has finished its scans of the device. Protect it while we set the charges."

Aay'han moved to Bev's pack as he grabbed one of his detonation packs. "Hold them off just a bit longer, Beviin." Aay'han quickly started to place the charge directly on the device when he noticed two IEDs that could help. The commander moved to the other side and firmly placed the charge so the blast would detonate the two canisters. "Charge set! _Tok'kad_!"

Bev retracted the force pike and as Aay'han covered him, he grabbed his pack and weapon. Ready, the two clones moved through the opening as Nyona, C3 and Rasen ran down the ramp. The exit was clear and all of the husks moved to the device. Beviin pulled out the detonator, "_Viinir_!" As they ran down the tunnel, he pressed the button. The entire caver started to shake as portions of the ceiling started to collapse around the artifact, crushing husks that tried to defend the remnants of the destroyed machine.

Vren and Aran saw the team heading toward them. Aran waited for them to pass him to ensure everyone makes it as Vren smashed any debris in the way. Tare and Forta could feel the quake but stood their ground until they saw the others come out. Soon enough Vren was the first to appear followed by Nyona, Rasen and the others. With everyone together they ran out of the tunnel and to the gunship. Rang pulled out his own detonator and pressed it once the team were with them. Rang had placed two charges around the mouth of the tunnel and the explosions crumpled the tunnel so that nothing was coming out of the mine anytime soon. After he did that, Rang asked them, "Nobody's hurt, right?"

* * *

Around the time Rasen accessed the terminal on Aequitas, on Illium, Prudii was throwing the body of the asari commando off the building. Moving on they could now see the bridge Seryna and the salarian workers all talked about. It was an exposed walkway that had not shielding against the wind, and if that wasn't enough Prudii spotted a pair of drones overlooking the bridge but that was only looked over by the many pillars and boxes that would serve as cover. As Shepard was about to step down to the bridge, Prudii extended his left arm in front of him. "Wait. Mechs. Three. Just behind the crates. Tali. Use your combat drone. Wake them up." Prudii started to configure his DC-17m to the sniper rifle as Tali summon Chiktikka and made it move across the bridge. Sure enough as Prudii had said, three LOKI mechs activated and started to attack the combat drone. Prudii was already waiting and shot the head off the closest mech. Prudii already had a beat on the second and within a matter of seconds he had shot the head off that one as well when Garrus shot the third one's head.

Over the loud speaker Nassana started yelling at her mercs, "I don't care what you do, no one gets across that bridge."

Moving on to destroy the last mech, two Eclipse mercs started to fire at them. Prudii destroyed the last LOKI mech before he moved behind the crates. As the mercs continued to fire at the clone Garrus took the opportunity to take out one of the troopers with a well-timed Concussive Shot that sent the merc off the bridge, plummeting to his death. The vanguard tried to hit Garrus with a Biotic warp but missed just as the turian took cover behind a pillar. With his attention diverted Prudii rushed the man and successfully knocked him down to the floor before stabbing him with his vibroblade.

Nassana could probably see the battles but it was clear she could see who they were. She was starting to panic even more so as they continued across the bridge, "What the hell are you waiting for? Just kill them!"

Prudii stopped before they were half way across and pulled his electrobinocular visor over his helmet's visor. Garrus moved to his side, "Did you see something?"

"No. Perfect spot for an E-Web or two." After looking for a bit Prudii suddenly pointed above the bridge. "There. Drones. About thirty-fives degrees and six meters out."

Garrus soon saw them, having to rely on his Kuwashii Visor to find it due to the intense wind. "That's going to be a tough shot to pull off with this wind."

Without hesitation Prudii was pulling out his DC-17 and the sniper components. Before he inserted the ammo he grabbed one of the original plasma charged clips. He examined the clip before he inserted it, _Three rounds left. That's one too many._ Prudii targeted the drone to his left, as he started to compensate for the wind and the force against his rifle. After finding the balance the plasma bolt flew as Prudii expected, he aimed the rifle slightly right of the target and the wind corrected it sending the plasma directly into the neck of the drone. The legs on the drone collapsed after the bolt made a clean cut through the drone and it exploded as the plasma vapors were quickly disbursed by the strong current. "One down," Prudii shifted to the next drone perched two meters to the right of the first one. This one was now actively scanning for targets after losing its connections with its VI partner. But Prudii was just outside of its range when he pulled the trigger. With both drones down, Prudii promptly switched his DC back to its assault rifle form as he told the others, "Clear. For now."

As Shepard and the other moved across the bridge, more Eclipse mercs moved to intercept them but the mercs were fighting an up-hill battle and they didn't even know it. More troopers moved up behind crates and pillars but Shepard and his team were waiting for them.

The troopers were easily disposed of as Shepard and Garrus used well placed Concussive Shots to knock them off the bridge. The asari vanguard tried to fight from a distance as she launched a Warp at Prudii only for the clone to stay behind the stack of crates.

Tali fried a few round of the Phalanx, drawing the attention of the vanguard. As Shepard and Garrus tore through her Biotic barrier. Before she was finished, another asari vanguard ran down the stairs firing off her shotgun. Prudii switched to his bowcaster and charged the shot. As Shepard finished off the first vanguard with a volley of shots, Prudii waited for Garrus to weaken the second vanguard's barrier before firing of the quarrel. Before the quarrel hit the asari, Garrus was able to drop the barrier completely, leaving the asari utterly vulnerable to the effects of the bowcaster. The magnetized quarrel made contact on the armor, on top of the asari's heart, and continued to send her flying to the wall behind her pinning her like a poster as the excess electrical charge coursed through her body.

As the team pushed forward more Eclipse troops tried to stop them as Nassana yelled at them over the PA, "What the hell am I paying you for?" This group had the high ground and had Shepard's team pinned. Tali deployed her combat drone as a distraction as the other grabbed their sniper rifles. Chiktikka did its job well, as the little drone was too fast for the mercs to try and hit it.

The asari vanguard unleashed a Biotic warp that followed the drone and finally made contact. Unfortunate for the mercs however, the snipers had their head in their sights. Shepard had used Squad Incendiary Ammo to give their sniper rifles an extra oomph. Prudii had not synced with Shepard's suit's computer to identify him for this nor did he want to us it. Garrus and Shepard fired on the two troopers beside the vanguard as Prudii, at 20x zoom, used the last plasma round against the vanguard. The plasma quickly burned through the biotic barrier as the metal quarrel penetrated the asari's skull and exited the other side into the wall behind her.

The teamed moved up to the stairs when Nassana shouted over the loud speakers again, "I'm sending in reinforcements."

Shepard turned to Tali, "Tali, send your combat drone ahead of us."

Prudii pulled out one of his recon droids. He communicated with the droid privately over private comm. channels, "Scout ahead with the drone." The small orb started to beep at Prudii only for him to tell it, "It's your job. Just stay behind something."

The two drones moved up the stairs as Chiktikka quickly moved up, the recon droid was holding back as it watched the drone get blasted by a shotgun. The droid promptly retreated back to Prudii as it hovered directly into his pack. Prudii activated his cloak and rushed up the stairs before Shepard. The scout found an asari with a Claymore shotgun in hand with tech armor. With only three seconds left before his cloak would die on him, Prudii ran as fast as he could to reach the asari. One second left, that wasn't enough time to maneuver around her and the crate, instead Prudii jumped onto the crate and knocking her shotgun out of her hands as he tackled her to the ground. The cloak started to deactivate during the tackle and Prudii extended his right knuckle vibroblades ready to finish her with a quick stab to the face, only for the asari to grab his arm in a biotic barrier keeping it away from her head.

Nassana short temper was at its end, "Damn it! Finish them off!" The asari continued to struggle against the clone as she tried to grab his pistol from the holster. Soon the asari got the upper hand as she kicked him, using her biotics to amplify the force of her kick, to send him off her, over the crate and onto the floor. But Prudii expected something like that, grabbing her left leg and pulled her with him. Prudii extended his other knuckle vibroblade in an attempt to strike her but the asari was now on top as she held his arms in biotic fields, keeping the blades away from her face. Tali had moved up to find the two lock in combat on the floor. Prudii saw her and told her over their helmet channels, "Shot! Point blank!" Now the clone grabbed the asari's arms and keeping her occupied so Tali could get closer. The asari's struggles soon stopped when she felt the barrel against her tendril-like hair on her head. Without hesitation Tali pulled the trigger as the body soon fell onto the clone. Prudii kicked the body off and rolled over to get back to his feet. As he did, he privately told Tali, "Thanks." With nothing left in their way, the team moved to the elevator to Nassana's penthouse.

* * *

**A/N: **I'm going to explain why the clones could hear the machine later. Prudii saw part of the LOKI mech's back from the higher viewpoint. That and LOKI's normally deploy in teams of two or more. The way the boxes were set up on the bridge made it rather obvious it was three though. I made the asari commando have a bit more spunk because of how Benezia and Liara try to make them sound. Sorry I had to end just before Thane showed up but I stay to my word count.

**Mando'a Translation:** Short this time.

Tok'kad(toh-KAHD)- Retreat

Viinir(VEEN-eer)- Run


	40. Unusual Meetings

**A/N: **Hello, welcome back. Now to say hi to an assassin…

* * *

With three Eclipse mercs left with her, Nassana was pacing around as she looked out at the setting sun behind her desk. As the door opened the team moved closer to Nassana's desk. Nassana turned around to face who she believed to be her assassins as the Eclipse mercs grabbed their weapons. What Nassana wasn't anticipating a reunion with the dead, "Shepard? But…you're dead."

Shepard mockingly answered her, "I got better."

Nassana's three mercs steadied their weapons on the team as she assumed the situation, "And now you're here to kill me."

Prudii already had his DC in its sniper form aimed at Nassana's head as Garrus and Tali prepared to attack the mercs, Tali activated her omni-tool and Garrus pulled out his Mantis sniper rifle. Shepard joked with her as he said, "Maybe I just missed you."

Nassana blew him off as she turned toward the window, "Screw you, Shepard."

Shepard smiled as he sarcastically said, "Charming as ever."

Nassana turned her head slightly to look at Shepard as she confessed her amazement of the situation, "I'm sure you find this all very ironic. First you take care of my sister, and now you're here for me. Well, you made it this far. Now what?"

Shepard couldn't help but question her train of thought, "You really think I'm here to kill you?"

Nassana blatantly pointed out the recent events within her tower, "Do you have another reason for destroying my tower? Decimating my security?"

Shepard simply told her truthfully, "I'm just looking for someone."

Nassana's paranoia had already eaten away at her sanity, "You expect me to believe that? Is it credits? Is that what you want? Just tell me your price. We can make this problem go away." She paused to take a better look at Prudii, "Wait… You! Why do you look familiar?"

Prudii continued to keep Nassana in his scope as he replied, "Araniik Tervho. You hired the Mandalorians for a job awhile back."

Nassana recalled the job, "Yes, you never did return for your payment. If you kill Shepard now, I'll quadruple the…"

Prudii continued to hold the weapon at her head as he heard the faint banging of footsteps within the ventilation ducts, "Negative. The terms of our contract were broken by Nassana Dantius. The Mandalorians have declined to accept payment due to conditions created by you. I'm already in the middle of a contract. I will not break it. There's no choice."

Nassana tried to persuade him, "You've got a choice. You don't have to do this. I can tell you…" As she spoke, a series of bangs had caught the attention of the three Eclipse mercs as they started to look around the room. The Eclipse commando's had caught Nassana's attention as she yelled, "What?"

The asari answered her, "I heard something."

Nassana had enough as she slammed her hand against her desk, "Damn it. Check the other entrances!" The commando moved to Nassana's left when Nassana turned back to Shepard and Prudii, "You…both of you stay put." Nassana grabbed the Predator pistol on her desk, "When I'm finished dealing with this nuisance, we are going to…" As Nassana continued, a green scaled humanoid in a black outfit with large neck collars dropped from the open fan behind one of the mercs. Taking a few moments to recover from the silent drop, the assassin grabbed a hold of the merc's head and immediately snapped it. The Eclipse Vanguard heard the snap and tried to attack only for the assassin to punch him in the neck, instantly killing him, "Who…?" Nassana turned around to see what happened as the assassin placed a shot into the asari commando's head. He then elegantly dodged Nassana's shot as he twirled and grabbed Nassana's right wrist. The assassin was now face to face with Nassana when she felt a pistol against her abdomen. The assassin let Nassana look down to confirm the feeling before he pulled the trigger a moment later. Before Nassana collapsed onto the floor, the assassin gently grabbed her head as he slowly placed her against her desk and folded her arms onto of her chest. A moment after things had fallen silent, the assassin started to pray silently, with his hands clasped together.

Garrus could only comment on the flashy entrance he just witnessed, "Impressive. You certainly know how to make an entrance."

As Garrus and Tali continued to aim their weapons on the drell, Prudii took his DC-17 apart as he hung the body of the rifle on his belt and the rest of the components went into his pack. Shepard stepped forward slightly and tried to talk to Thane, "I was hoping to talk with you."

Thane lifted his head slightly to respond as he continued to pray silently, "I apologize, but prayers for the wicked must not be forsaken."

Prudii blatantly told the drell, "She doesn't deserve it."

Thane finally lifted his head fully as he corrected the clone, "Not for her. For me." Thane then grabbed his pistol from the desk and holstered it to his hip as he walked around and explained further, "The measure of an individual can be difficult to discern by actions alone. Take you, for instance." Thane looked toward Prudii, "You and the Mandalorians have a reputation in the underworld as being the best of the best. Willing to take any job for the right price and always completing it no matter what. Yet there are also whispers that the very same Mandalorians often help those who need it most." Thane then turned his attention back to Shepard, "And as for you, all this destruction…chaos." Shepard turned his eyes back to Nassana's body as Thane continued to move closer to the Commander, "I was curious to see how far you'd go to find me. Well…here I am."

Prudii replied, "I'm not here for you or Nassana. I've got another contract I'm currently fulfilling. Shepard's the one who wanted to meet you."

Shepard was curious about how Thane seemed to know, "How did you know I was coming at all?"

Prudii quickly answered, "A good assassin is a shadow. They don't leave a trail like you."

Thane replied, "That is correct." Thane had moved himself into the Garrus' line of fire. Thane wasn't bothered by the rifle as he placed his hands behind his back, "Nassana had become paranoid. You saw the strength of her guard force. She believed one of her sisters would kill her. You were a valuable distraction."

Shepard didn't seem too pleased with the notion, "You used me. So you could kill her!"

Thane wasn't going to lie, "I needed a diversion; you needed to speak with me." Shepard nodded to his squad as the holstered their weapons. Thane then turned to face Shepard, "You certainly fulfilled your end of the bargain. What would you like to discuss?"

Shepard told Thane a rather farfetched truth, "Someone's been abducting entire human colonies. We're going to stop them. We already know the culprits—a race called the Collectors."

Thane took a few step forward, back toward the desk, as he looked out the window at the setting sun, "I've heard of them." Thane quickly turned around to Shepard and noted how impossible this task seems, "Attacking the Collectors would require passing through the Omega 4 relay. No ship has ever returned from doing so."

Shepard then sighted one of his prior feats, "They told me it was impossible to get to Ilos, too."

Thane smiled at the fact, "A fair point. You've built a career on performing the impossible." Thane had turned his head back to view the window as Shepard had moved to his side. Thane closed his eyes as he reflected on his thoughts before telling the Commander, "This was to be my last job. I'm dying. Low survival odds don't concern me. The abduction of your colonists does."

The dossier the Illusive Man had provided did not mention anything about that last bit. "I hadn't heard that. Is there anything I can do?"

"Giving me this opportunity is enough. The universe is a dark place. I'm trying to make it brighter before I die." Thane turned to face Shepard, "Many innocents died today. I wasn't fast enough, and they suffered. I must atone for that." Thane extended his hand out as the two shook, "I will work for you Shepard. No charge."

As this continued Prudii finally send his family a message about his situation and what he was going to do. As he did that, Thane walked over to him as he said, "It will be interesting to see how well we work together."

Prudii didn't seem too pleased though, "Don't get your hopes up. I'm not here for Shepard. Like I said, I have another contract." Prudii had already realized what Thane meant earlier by his 'last job'. Prudii then nodded as he said, "It will be interesting to work with you. Won't be enjoyable. Just interesting."

* * *

After the Mandalorians had returning to the Tervho, C3 was with Pyth in the medbay as she started to study the data and images of the indoctrination machine, Araniik gave Rang the task of creating a message to send to their anonymous client as he and Beviin discussed their encounter to the Citadel Council. The two clones stood at attention in the small room as they awaited the four holograms to appear before them. A moment after their images had phased in, Aran gave them his report, "Councilors, we recently encountered a device that has similar properties to that of Dragon's Teeth, without the need of impaling its victims."

Anderson was the first to ask the two, "Are you sure?"

Beviin answered, being the only one in the room to have seen it directly. He stepped forward as he replied, "Sir. The device was found deep within a mining facility. From the recovered records, the workers accidentally unearthed the device while expanding one of the mining tunnels. They had a long period of exposure and slowly lost their senses. We can only assume what happened after but we do know that a majority of them were transformed into husks. We found the skeletal remains of one human outside of the mine."

Councilor Marnath soon asked, "Where you able to recover anything of the device?"

Beviin reported a partial truth, "Negative, sir. The moment we were within visual range of the device, all remaining husks within the mine moved to defend it. Due to the number of husks, the size and the nature of the device, we planted a remote det charge to it directly and evacuated the cavern before detonation."

Valern then suggested, "If you could have eliminated all of the husks, you might have been able to salvage it."

Beviin did not agree with the assessment. "With all due respect sir, even had we cleared the mine of husks, the risk of indoctrination was high. With no knowledge of the device, we'd only be placing ourselves and others in unnecessary danger."

"Provided it didn't fully activate, or more specifically, powered up to a level it normally functions." The sudden intrusion was followed by the sudden appearance of the good professor.

All of the Councilors were taken back by this strange new creature that had suddenly appeared before them. Its teeth and oddly shaped head were unusual to say the least. Valern quickly asked the two commandos, "Who and what is that, Araniik?"

The professor then turned to the four orange holograms as she bowed to them, "Oh, do forgive the intrusion. I overheard someone thinking about the device and wish to properly inform them of my findings. Allow me to introduce myself. Silis Pyth of the University of Sanbra. Professor of sentientologist and xenolinguist."

Aran added, "She is a Draethos. You won't be seeing another like her ever again because she's not from this galaxy; she's from ours."

Before the Councilors could ask any more questions about her, Pyth quickly turned her back to them as she spoke to the commandos directly, "Aran, you and the others were rather fortunate the device was running on backup power systems, still recharging or something I think. From the data the astromech was able to record I was able to determine the device was actually functioning on settings much lower then what it normally operates on. Had it been operating at its full capacity the device would have easily broken the most hardened of minds, your General being one of them. How long it would take is another matter. Probably within days, or a week, of constant exposure."

Councilor Tevos then asked Silis, "Are you certain the device was operating at lower functionality then what it should?"

The Draethos quickly replied to the asari, "Most defiantly. The device had only been active for about a month or so. It must have still been recovering from hibernation, stasis, sleep, or whatever sounds more appropriate for the device." Pyth turned to Aran again, "Oh before I forget, Rang told me to tell you something about your other brother. He seemed rather ecstatic and confused about whatever it was." With that Pyth walked out mumbling about something to herself, again.

Aran hoped the unexpected entry of Pyth had settled things, "Is that everything, Councilors?"

Tevos nodded to the others before finally speaking to them "Yes. That will be all. Good luck, Mandalorians." After the three original council members disconnected, but Councilor Anderson stayed to ask a few more questions.

Aran could guess what they were about, "Councilor. I assume you wish to discuss recent events on Horizon."

Anderson was in his private chambers on the Citadel as he replied, "Yes. Williams was frozen by the drones and reported what she did see. I was hoping you could fill in some of the gaps."

Aran was more than happy to, "Councilor, we had received information that lead us to believe the Collectors planned to attack the colony next."

Anderson was suspicious of the source, "Was it Cerberus?"

Aran only affirmed it, "Yes sir. The Illusive Man had relayed a message suggesting we not travel to the colony. But we had acquired samples from Freedom's Progress so we…"

Anderson had to interrupt, "Our teams didn't find anything at Freedom's Progress. Why were you there at all?"

Beviin answered that one, "We had a crew member who had family on the colony when they lost contact. We went to investigate the colony in the hopes he wasn't taken. Luckily the Collectors weren't interested in acquiring quarian subjects at the time."

Anderson knew the Mandalorians had many dealing with the quarians and let the subject side. "Continue. What happened on Horizon?"

Aran only informed him of what he needed to know, "The Collectors were using small insect-like drones, called Seekers, to hunt down and paralyze the colonists. Once paralyzed, the Collectors moved the humans into cocoon-like pods and transferred them to their ship. We tried to save as many as we could, but the Collectors had already taken half of the colony by the time we pushed them back to their ship. Commander Shepard was also there to prevent the Collectors from taking the colony, though some might argue that we were only half successful."

Aran had confirmed everything on Williams' report, but without physical proof, the other Councilors would be hard pressed to believe the Reapers existed or were even involved. "Thank you, Araniik. That will be all."

"Sir." With that, Anderson's hologram disappeared.

Beviin turned to his superior, "Aran, shall we see what message Prudii sent?"

Aran didn't even need to speak as the two moved to find Rang. As the two approached, Rang waved as he told them, "Hey guys, it seems the mission to Haestrom was a bit messy, but Commander Shepard came to pick up Tali."

Without having to read the message, Aran could guess the next part, "And he's with them right now, right?"

"You got it." Rang turned to his brothers, "So, do we try to find them?"

Aran rhetorically asked Rang, "Unless you want to try and drag him back here, be my guest." Aran smiled as he said, "Just tell him to be careful and we'll always be here if he ever needs us."

Rang typed out Aran's reply, in his own words, before telling them, "Message away. I sure hope he knows what he's doing."

* * *

Before Thane spoke with Shepard and Jacob, he had a private discussion with Prudii first within Dantius Tower. Down in engineering, Tali awaited Prudii's return. As the door opened behind her, she turned and asked him, "So what was it that Thane wanted to talk to you about?"

Prudii first leaned himself against the railing as he answered, "Old jobs. A few tactics. Nothing special. Said we were kindred sprites, relative to assassins." Prudii turned to the other two engineers who quickly returned to their consoles. Prudii returned his attention back to Tali as he suddenly told her, "Krios planned to die there. He planned his suicide rather well."

Tali wasn't sure how Prudii was so certain about this, "I don't think he intended to die there."

Prudii had to point out a few things he spotted, "How many mercs weren't killed by us? I only found five outside of the penthouse. Without us, Krios would have been swarmed by mercs after he killed Nassana. Would have been a good final fight."

Tali still wasn't sure Thane was so willing to die, "Are you sure, Prudii? Why would he do that? There must be more to it."

Prudii wasn't sure but he had an idea, "Don't know. Maybe he did something, or failed to do it, in his past. Now he's just trying to redeem himself, in his eyes. Could be he just wanted to live through the thrill of hunting as an assassin one last time. Won't know for sure unless someone asks."

Just as thing were starting to become quiet and routine, the door behind Tali opened as one of the Normandy's crew walked in with a small crate. Prudii had seen her with another in the galley. "Package for you, Tali."

Tali turned and the moment she saw the crate she knew what it was. Tali grabbed the crate as she bowed slightly, "Thank you." Tali soon left the room with the crate in hand not say a word as to why. Prudii was curious but he was willing to wait instead of tailing her.

The man across the way looked to Prudii as he asked him, "So, do you play Skyllian-Five poker?"

* * *

It was almost an hour after she left before the doors to engineering opened again. Tali had returned but she had a different envirosuit on. Most of her light purple trappings were now a darker shade of blue with the same design sowed into them. Her neck and chest also had something different, instead of the black suit and yellow ringing they were now mostly covered by new, non-reflective, silver pieces that looked more like armor. Prudii also noticed that her mask was slightly different as well. It still had the same purple colored visor from before but the visor now had a HUD visibly displayed over her right eye. The mask itself had a few slight alterations; there was a small light yellow line on the gray metal pieces that surrounded the sides of her mouth and the small light that flashed whenever she talked as well as the small two curved metal pieces on the bottom portion of her visor, almost hidden from view by the hood of her cloth, were also the same shade of light yellow as the lines below her visor. Besides these additions and changes, everything else about her remained the same, from the three straps around her upper abdomen, to the pouches on her arms and the knife strapped to her left leg.

Returning to her console, Tali stopped to look to the clone as she asked him, "Well, what do you think? I requisitioned this from the Migrant Fleet, seeing as we'd probably be getting into more serious fights later on."

Prudii looked her over as he examined the changes from his position. "Metal's non-reflective, good. Decent placement, protects some of the obvious vital spots. Looks very flexible…" Prudii then mustered what he could to tell her, "It…it looks…it looks nice."

Tali seemed happy to hear that from him as she said, "Thanks. It was hard to request this but I think it might be worth it."

* * *

**A/N: **Aran wanted to inform Anderson of recent event but he had to speak with the Council as a whole first(that and I missed those debriefs in ME2). Pyth (as you can see) is a busybody who likes to keep herself in the loop of most things she pokes her nose in and correcting any missinformation or misconception before they happen, even if it means listening to surface thoughts. Yes, I used the alternate Tali suit to use up words count, that and I actually liked that suit better than the other two avaliable for her. I'll think about adding the other alt suits and seeing if I can add them sometime soon. Until then see you later.

**Mando'a Translation:** Sorry.


	41. Unforseen Events

**A/N: **Sorry for the delay everybody, but only having 2 hours of access on Word at work doesn't really help. Hopefully that problem will be resolved shortly. Now to continue with the story.

* * *

As Pyth returned to her studies within the medical bay, Lissarkh seemed to be fighting something as the curtains occasionally rustled. Palva returned from a meal to find this as Pyth seemed to ignore or was unaware of events around her. "Fine, I'll handle it." As Palva expected, Pyth didn't seem to hear a single word. Moving the curtains, Palva found Lissarkh and her right hand had a light blue aura about it as she slowly moved it over the still growing left arm. The rustling came from her kicking the pain. Palva could only ask the Jedi, "What are you doing?"

Lissarkh stopped to catch her breath as she replied, "I'm accelerating the growth…and the pain…"

Palva however seemed confused, "I can understand helping start the healing process, but why are you doing this to yourself now? Shouldn't you be letting your body handle that?"

Lissarkh looked at the medical chief as she plainly told her, "I'm in my late thirties. My people lose our ability to regenerate lost limbs around forty-five. Some have been fortunate enough to still be capable of regenerating them even after that, but I cannot take the chance if I am to be of use to the clones."

Palva could understand but to her this still seemed drastic. Finally conceding, the older turian grabbed some of the medical equipment and started to gather them next to Lissarkh. "At least let me help you so you aren't in so much pain." Lissarkh, though hesitant, allowed it, stopping so Palva could do what she was trained to do.

* * *

Shepard had ventured back out onto Illium to find an asari justicar with Garrus and Thane as things were quiet once again inside the Normandy. Tali continued to acquaint herself to the changes to the Normandy's systems while the other two engineers were playing a game of Skyllian-Five poker with some of the crew in the mess.

Meanwhile on the Normandy, Shepard had ventured back out onto Illium to find an asari justicar with Garrus and Thane. Things were quiet again inside the Normandy. Tali continued to acquaint herself to the changes to the Normandy's systems while the other two engineers were playing a game of Skyllian-Five poker with some of the crew in the mess.

With the Cerberus engineers gone, Prudii was getting some shuteye until the doors to engineering opened. Prudii had Tali help have his suit give a small jolt to alert him to anyone entering engineering if he happened to be asleep. Prudii saw it was Miranda, the loyal Cerberus agent he would rather have nothing to do with. Miranda though seemed uncomfortable as she continued toward Prudii and Tali. Prudii said nothing as he continued to lean against the railing, watching her every movement like a gargoyle. Miranda then did something the Mandalorian wasn't expecting, she was asking for assistance, "Mandalorian…I…I need your help with something. Something sensitive…"

Prudii wasn't sure about the situation, as he looked to Tali who had turned around to listen. Prudii told her, "If it involves Cerberus, you're out of luck."

Miranda through didn't seem to be that wicked bitchy self she usually was. She insisted, "Partly, but the matter's more personal for me. It's about my sister. My twin sister."

This caught Prudii's attention, though he still was skeptical about it, "If another one of your Cerberus agents are in trouble, go ask Shepard or someone else."

Miranda looked away, "She's not with Cerberus. She's with a foster family. I did ask Shepard, but my contact on Illium has informed me their flight has been changed to today. With the attacks on human colonies, flights are becoming scarce. Please, we need to go now!"

Prudii was still hesitant; he wanted more information, "Why are you going so far for her? Who's after her?"

Miranda didn't seem like she wanted to talk about it, but if she was going to get him to work with her she had no other choice, "My sister and I were created by our father. He designed us to be perfect but that wasn't enough for him. He never wanted daughters, he wanted a legacy. I joined Cerberus for protection, both for myself and for my sister. But it seems my father has finally found Oriana. I want to make sure she is relocated without any trouble."

Tali turned to the commando as she told him, "This sounds somewhat familiar…"

Prudii felt some sympathy for her, but unlike Miranda's father, Prudii's family cared for him. Prudii didn't like Miranda simply because of her affiliation and almost blind loyalty to Cerberus, but he wasn't going to ignore a sibling's plight, enough if that sibling was related to Miranda, "Fine, but no Cerberus. If it's a trap…"

"It's not." Miranda seemed honest, something Prudii wasn't expecting.

Prudii was trying to think of who he wanted as backup from those on board. _Evaar'la krogan…nayc. Jack…n'sur'a. Nu draar ti adenn ruug jag._ Prudii finally lifted his head as he turned to Tali, "Want to come?"

Tali nodded, "There's no need to ask."

"Just need the thief…"

Miranda seemed impatient, "Alright, my contact is supposed to be waiting for us at the Eternity bar."

* * *

Before disembarking from the Normandy, Miranda had given Tali a new shotgun to use. It was a geth plasma shotgun that was acquired by another cell within Cerberus. Tali had reserved feelings about using the weapon but Kasumi was able to convince her to at least carry the weapon for now.

Entering Eternity the bartender, Matriarch Aethyta, waved Prudii over. "Prudii? Fancy seeing you here, again. See you're hanging around a new crowd, does that mean you left your family?"

Prudii shook his head, "No. Just a solo job. Simple escort mission."

Aethyta smiled, "Well then just remember to tell that idiot brother of yours he still owes me for those concoctions of his last month. My boss is still riding my ass about it."

Prudii nodded to her as he joined Miranda and her contact. Once the group was inside the small room, the contact closed the door. The contact was an asari, and she was in all black. The asari soon greeted Miranda, "Ms. Lawson. I'm glad you made it. We've had a complication."

Miranda, obviously worried, immediately asked, "What happened? Is Oriana all right?"

The asari tried to calm her but she didn't seem to have comforting news, "She's fine. But…you listed a man named Niket as your trusted source? He contacted me, warning that your father has sent Eclipse mercenaries to make a sweep. He suggested that the mercs might be watching for you personally. He's offered to escort Oriana's family to the terminal instead."

Prudii never did like complications. He turned to Miranda as he asked her, "Niket?"

"He's a friend. He and I go back a long way…"

The asari politely asked Miranda, "Do you want to bring in any of your other Illium contacts, Ms. Lawson?"

Miranda declined, "No. You and Niket are the only two I trust on this."

Prudii didn't want to walk into a firefight blind, he knew the Eclipse were big, so he was hoping the contact had more information. "What else do you know about these Eclipse. The division, who's in charge."

The contact told him everything she knew, "I've only been able to confirm that they're Eclipse, and that they're working for an organization Ms. Lawson warned us about. I could try to alert the authorities, but so far, they've done nothing illegal."

Miranda seemed to agree with the asari's judgment call, "You made the right decision. We'll handle this ourselves."

Prudii turned to Miranda, "She's your sister. Your move."

Miranda turned to her contact, "Lantela, we'll follow Niket's suggestion. The Mandalorian and I will take the car and draw their attention. Have Niket escort the family to the shuttle. Give him full access to the family's itinerary, just to be safe."

Lantela nodded, "Understood, Ms. Lawson."

Kasumi joked about the situation, "So we get shot at while your sister gets a safe flight to who know where, or did I miss something in the memo?"

Miranda tried to assure the others, "Eclipse will be under orders to take my sister alive. They won't risk anything that could kill us."

Tali then asked, "What about this Niket person? I doubt the Eclipse would send all of their people just to stop us."

Miranda had full confidence in her friend, "Niket can take care of himself. Besides, any armed backup just draws attention to him."

Prudii turned around as he said, "Time to give Eclipse the usual Mandalorian greeting."

As the group walked out, Miranda thanked Prudii, "Thank you. I appreciate this. I hadn't planned on Eclipse…but they never planned on you."

* * *

While flying toward the cargo terminal, Miranda turned her head when she spotted them, "Damn it!" The others turned and saw as well. "Eclipse mercenary gunships. They'll be dropping troops in the cargo areas." The three Mantis dropships flew in formation for a time before breaking off to their preplanned drop zones. One of them stopped near the cargo area as it dropped off troops.

Prudii then pointed out to Miranda, "There. The LZ behind them has plenty of cover."

Miranda joked as she told the others, "Let's hope they really do want to take us alive."

Kasumi seemed to partake as well, "Sure, hey maybe if we ask really nicely they might even invite us over for sake and karaoke later."

As they flew closer, most of the mercs in the area opened fire on the skycar until their leader saw Miranda. He grabbed the closest assault rifle and lowered it as he shouted at the others, "Hold fire. I said hold fire, damn it!" Too late as the skycar took damage and Miranda was forced to come to a crash. She flew over their heads as the skycar skid to a stop. A more decent example of Rule 45 that Prudii had seen, or experienced.

Kasumi told Miranda before the canopy opened, "Next time, let the Mandalorian drive."

As the Eclipse readied their weapons, the leader seemed overconfident of the situation as he told his men, "I've got this."

The Mantis gunship flew off as Miranda confronted the leader, "Since you're not firing yet, I trust you know who I am."

The leader had tech armor over his Eclipse armor as one of his men walked up beside him. "Yeah. They said you'd be in the car. You're the bitch that kidnapped our boss' little girl."

Prudii was even more suspicious about Miranda now, but Miranda didn't seem to agree with the merc's assessment, "Kidnapped? This doesn't involve you. I suggest you take your men and go."

The merc proved his cockiness as he stated, "Think you've got it all lined up, huh? Captain Enyala's already moving in on the kid. She knows about Niket. He won't be helping you."

Tali didn't like what the merc said, "What do you mean, Niket won't be helping us?"

The merc shouted, "Nothing you need to worry about. Nobody's going to get killed unless you do something stupid. You walk away now, the girl goes back to her father, and everybody's happy."

Miranda disagreed, again, "Everybody but my sister…and me."

Tali turned to the Miranda because of information from the merc and her don't seem to match up, "Wait a minute. Miranda, you said twin sister. He talks as if she's still a child."

The merc tried to use that to his advantage, "That what she told you? No, this crazy bitch kidnapped our boss' baby daughter. He's been looking for her for more than a decade."

Miranda turned to the others as she said, "It's complicated. We share the same DNA, just not the same birthday." Prudii understood the situation clearly however. He knew they would probably have to explain it to Tali and Kasumi, though at a later point when a fight wasn't immanent.

The merc continued on, "You took a baby from the richest guy in the galaxy, lady. I don't know what your damage is, but you're not getting away with it."

Prudii could see the fire in Miranda's eyes, the same fire Prudii has for his brothers and his new clan. He gave the mercs one chance to live. "Leave. Now!"

The merc wasn't impressed as he crossed his arms and eased his posture slightly, "Captain Enyala ordered us to give you one chance to walk away. But this whole time we've been talking, my men have been lining up shots." The merc took a step toward Prudii as he told him, "When I say the word, we unleash hell on your squad." Before he said that a wireless crane had started to move by with a flammable container in claw. Miranda nodded her head just slightly enough for Prudii to notice.

Prudii quietly radioed to Tali, "Tali, hack the claw on our signal. Release the cargo." Tali looked off to the distance and saw the claw Prudii was talking about as it was almost above two of the mercs.

The merc leader had continued with his speech when Prudii turned his full attention back to him, "…unless you want things to get ugly."

Prudii took a step closer, now face to helmet with the merc as the blue of Prudii's visor lit up the man's face. The merc paused to see what Prudii would do, unfortunately that mistake would be his last, as Prudii extended his right vibroblade and jabbed the merc in the chest followed by two more quick jabs before twisted his neck. At the very instant Prudii jabbed the leader the first time, Miranda opened fire on the other merc, repeatedly shooting him at close range with the Tempest submachine gun. As the two mercs in front were dealt with, Tali quickly activated her omni-tool as she took control of the claw. The two Eclipse mercs in the back were switching to their ML-77 Missile Launchers as a salarian engineer started to open fire with a Carnifex heavy pistol. Kasumi provided Tali with cover fire with the Locust when the claw released its cargo, exploding just behind the two Eclipse mercs. The blast had enough force to send one of the mercs flying and to bounce off the crate the salarian was firing behind. The salarian was caught off guard by the sight of his comrade zooming past, gawking at the sight. This gave the team enough time to get to cover.

Kasumi tossed an Overload tech out to the salarian, knocking out his shields. Prudii quickly gunned down the salarian with his DC as more Eclipse mercs ran out from around the corner. Prudii grabbed his bowcaster as he charged the quarrel. Tali sent her drone off as a distraction when Prudii readied his weapon. Using the built in scope, Prudii targeted the closest merc and fired at his head. The quarrel broke through the shields and lodged itself into the side of the merc's helmet as the kinetic energy sent him flying to the wall, hanging him like a trophy. Miranda fired a few rounds to break through the shields before unleashing a Biotic Warp that collapsed the other merc's chest cavity. The new salarian tried to attack with an Incinerate tech but Tali's drone took the blast before it could reach its intended target. Kasumi disappeared from behind the crate as she suddenly reappeared behind the salarian. Her omni-tool activated as she struck the salarian in the back, breaking his spine in the process.

With the area clear for the moment, Miranda moved on her own as she yelled at the others, "Come on! We need to get to Niket!" Prudii could tell she genuinely cared for this Niket, that or she was a very good actress. Moving on to the next area, Miranda was waiting for the other to catch up to her as Prudii pulled his quarrel out of the merc's head. Suddenly gunfire started to blaze by Miranda's head as she took cover, "Look out!"

Prudii ran over and activated his Tactical Cloak rushing toward the mercs. There were two of them, one behind a few crates and the other was standing on the bed of a truck. Prudii jumped onto a crate and leapt at the first merc. Extending one of his vibroblades, Prudii's cloak deactivated but not before he was right on top of the merc, pinning him to the floor and executing him with a swift strike to the neck. Prudii picked his targets well, as the crates provided excellent cover from the second Eclipse merc. With that distraction, Miranda, Kasumi and Tali attack the merc on the truck quickly finishing him with a volley of shots. After the last merc fell Prudii finally got up as the team moved toward the elevator.

Just as Prudii summoned the elevator, they heard a voice coming from a radio from the recently killed merc. "Team do you read? Team four?"

Miranda walked over and picked it up, "Hang on. I've got one of their radios. I'll patch us in, see if I can get an idea what we're up against." As the team entered the elevator, Miranda stopped just outside of the doors, almost apologetic, "Mandalorian…everyone…I think I own you all an explanation. Oriana is my twin, genetically. But my father…grew her when I was a teenager."

Prudii interrupted, seeing where she was going, "She was your replacement."

Miranda looked down, only confirming his assessment, "I couldn't let my father do to her what he did to me. So I rescued her."

Kasumi was not there at the being when she asked for help but she was there now trying to piece things together. "Well I think it would have made more sense if you told us we were saving a kid."

Miranda corrected her, "She's not a child; she'll be nineteen this year. But…well it didn't seem relevant at the time, I suppose. There are people who'd use her against me. I'm very protective when it comes to Oriana." Prudii knew that feeling all too well.

Kasumi still had questions, though she asked in her usually playful way, "I know I'm the thief here but even I don't take kids from their parents."

Miranda answered bluntly, "If you knew my father, you would understand. I wasn't the first one he made. I was the first he kept. I was brought up with no friends, pushed to meet impossible demands. I wasn't a daughter to him, I was…I don't know what I was."

Prudii knew, though unlike her he had his brothers, Vhonte and Taun We who all cared for him, each in their own unique way. "You were to continue his work. Something to make him immortal."

Miranda didn't seem to care about the why, "Oriana has had a normal life. I made the right decision."

Tali noted, "If Eclipse knows where Oriana is, then they'll move in on her soon. We have to hurry if we want to stop them."

Miranda nodded, "Agreed. I'm a bit worried by what the merc said. If they've got to Niket somehow, this is going to be harder than I'd planned." Miranda entered the elevator as she continued, "According to the specs I reviewed, we'll need to cut through the cargo processing yard to get to Oriana."

Prudii turned to her as he asked, "Anything about the yard we should watch for?"

Miranda pointed out the obvious first, "We'll be moving through conveyor systems. There'll be a lot of movement. Finding targets won't be easy. We'll need to stay sharp. And these cargo transports carry hazardous materials, so watch what you shoot at."

Kasumi couldn't help but add "This just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?" adding her usual smile underneath her hood.

Prudii had some doubt about Niket, "You sure Niket's on your side?"

Miranda immediately answered, "Absolutely. Niket is one of my oldest friends. I guess you could say he was my only real friend. He's the only person I didn't cut ties with when I left my father."

Tali didn't like the sound of that, "What if your father somehow convinced Niket to work against you?"

Miranda continued to defend her friend, "I'm sure he's tried, but Niket's one of the few people who understands what my father is really like. I trusted him with my life when I ran from my father, Tali. He won't betray me now."

Prudii pressed the button as the elevator doors closed, "Let's find your sister."

* * *

**A/N: **I took this route under advisment from a reader(and I think it was a good idea). I figure that those cargo claws would have very little security when it came to hack attacks so why not have our quarian expert override its programming to work for them, it a lot better then just standing like a boards shooting it while a salarian shots at you. Next time I'll touch up more on the other Mandalorians and how Shepard's doings recruiting Samara.

**Mando'a Translation:**

Evaar'la krogan…no.- The young krogan…no.

Jack…n'sur'a.- Jack…unfocused.(Sorry, this was the closest word to unstable in the offical dictionary.)

Nu draar ti adenn ruug jag.- No way with the ruthless old man.


	42. Cranes & Canisters

**A/N: **Yes! I've finally got that problem at home resolved. Now the updates should come sooner then what was happening before(weeks instead of months between). I'll let you back to read the story.

* * *

The elevator doors opened to the sounds of wireless claws moving crates and conveyer belts turning. Prudii started to climb up onto a pile of contain as Miranda yelled at him. "What are you doing? We have to save my sister!"

Prudii ignored her as he communicated to Tali. "Hold your position, stay out of sight. When I snipe the first merc you three move up and attack. I'll continue to snipe from above until the area's clear."

Tali stopped Miranda as she told her, "Don't worry. He knows what his doing."

As Tali relayed Prudii's plan, the commando turned off all of his armor's external lights, including his visor. Among the crates Prudii pulled out the sniper configurations for his DC and grabbed an extra attachment, a suppressor designed by Beviin to mitigate the flash and sound from the sniper rifle along with the particle trail the DC is known to leave, even while using a thermal clip. Prudii waited in the dark as he started to count targets and get the timing for the machinery. _Cranes move through the area irregularly, with five seconds of interference per crate. I've got a window of about ten seconds best. They've got a shiny on patrol…in total two troopers and a salarian with tech armor, the rest of the patrol is probably hiding nearby. Inside that container maybe. _When he was ready, Prudii killed the salarian as the two mercs ran for cover.

Hearing the two mercs calling for reinforcements, the others moved up as they took positions behind some of the crates scattered about. Prudii started to find his next target as more Eclipse troops moved in to engage.

* * *

Professor Pyth had coursed Aay'han to gather anyone interesting in learning more about the indoctrination device they found on Aequitas. In the end, only the clones, R4-C3, Rasen, Forta and a few of the ship's engineers showed up. Without further delay, Pyth inserted a datapad into a holoprojector as it displayed the scans C3 did on the device. Being the professor that she was, Pyth couldn't help but treat it like another one of her lectures at the university, "Now just from basic observation one could determine little about this unique machine."

Rang interrupted, "Ah, yes we can. It turns brains to mush and transforms humans to husks."

Pyth corrected the clone, "No, no that is merely a means to an end. Or at least that's what I've theorized at any rate. After much analysis, thanks to the thoroughness of the astromech droid, I believe I now understand the purpose of the machine. Now I was able to isolate several different hieroglyphs and other unusual markings on the surface, but at this point trying to decipher them would be all but impossible. The closest comparison would be the warning labels on the gunship or a rocket launcher. Moving on to a major point, the device is a data gathering probe."

Jak wasn't following, "Doc, how did the probe, if it really is a probe, get itself buried down there in the first place?"

Pyth continued to move about as she addressed Jak directly, "Excellent question. The planet itself is rich with mineral resources. That is the perfect lure in of itself, drawing a species to the resources available. And judging by the mass relay network, this planet's discovery was all but inevitable. The limiting factors being how adventurous or daring a civilization would be at activating a new relay."

Beviin stopped Pyth before she could ramble on, "Now the important question, what data was it gathering and why was it gathering it?"

"Yes all very important questions, but I was getting there," Pyth moved about as she pulled out a collapsible pointer, "This here is a containment unit. Now you may want to ask what it is containing. Well, its genetic material." C3 soon started to buzz at Pyth, and some of it seemed confused. "Yes, I know your scanners weren't able to penetrate the deeper workings of the machine but this was mostly a deduction on my part."

Dagger was impressed, "Never knew you understood droid speak."

Pyth corrected that assessment, "No, regrettably I've had little use for droids at the university, so learning droid speak wasn't really a high priority for me. The only reason I knew what she said, was because the initial data was very limited to mostly surface scans at best."

Rasen was suspicious about this, "Then how do you know that container has genetic material in it?"

Pyth chuckled to herself, "Why Rang provided me with my evidence. Or more accurately, I should say the cadavers you procured from Horizon gave me my evidence. I studied the deactivated nanites within one of the husk specimens and I found a few of the same nanites on the surface of the device." Pyth turned to Aay'han and settled his worries before they could start, "No I don't believe you are infected or anything. These one are more like the worker bees of a colony rather than self-replicators. They require time to infect an individual rather than a few samples landing on you and instantly taking over." Pyth changed the hologram to display one of the nanites. "Well build machines, though I have little understanding in this area, but I do however understand the function. From the records the miners left behind, it seems that when they found the device it activated itself, due to their presence or from being unearth, unfortunately we'll never know. When it was activated the indoctrination signal started to slowly erode the miners' wills and minds. As the signal subtly got stronger, the pleasure from being in such close proximity to the device eventually became a necessity, causing migraines and other debilitating pain within the nervous system if one strayed too far away from the signal. With the miners losing their instinct to survive, or the fight or flight response, the nanites could being gathering samples from the humans as they slowly transformed them into the mechanical creatures you had to kill. In a way the humans had digressed to a lower form…"

Rang rudely interrupted Pyth's speech, "I know this is all fascinating and what not, but that doesn't explain how you know for certain."

Pyth didn't seem upset at the medic as she bowed her head slightly, "Yes, your right. Truthfully all of this is mostly speculation and theories. Without the device, functioning nanites, and test subjects, I couldn't say anything with one hundred percent guaranty, until I took one apart. It seemed to function as an analysis droid; taking samples back to the device and replacing it with something else." Suddenly Pyth stopped as she seemed to be having a conversation with someone. "Oh, yes that, I almost forget. Yes I'll tell them now."

Rasen wasn't used to seeing an individual act in such a manner. She turned to Beviin as she asked him, "Does this happen often in your home galaxy?"

Bev answered honestly, "Telepathy isn't a common trait in any galaxy."

Pyth didn't seem to notice or hear the side conversation as she walked over to Aran, "Your General wanted me to inform you as to why she believes the indoctrination signal affected your minds faster than the others. She thinks it's because we're extragalactic beings. She theorizes that our brains waves are on a slightly different, tune or alignment, I forget what word she used, but if that wasn't the case she believe it also has to do with the number of telepaths we encounter."

Dagger wasn't following, "How does telepathy have anything to do with what happened down there and what we heard?"

Pyth, or more likely Lissarkh, had an answer ready to respond, "Because we know of entire species that are telepathic to some degree or other, my people being on the lower end of that spectrum. We also have to take into account of the Jedi and their multi-species makeup. Only those with training or are strong will could resist a Jedi mind-probing, so it should be expected that things such as the indoctrination signal would have a slightly easier time penetrating our metal barriers because they probably operate on a similar principle of a telepath. Your General advised for all who did hear any whispers to visit her to 'cleanse your minds', I think were her words. As she's offering to help teach us techniques to help fortify our minds in the event we ever come across another device like it or with its indoctrination capabilities. This is only a suggestion, not an order she told me to tell you as well."

As the group dispersed Rasen spoke with Rang in private. She noticed something near the end of the meeting, "Rang, is it just me or did Aran seem, different…"

Rang took a gander as he tried to explain, "Ah, that…well that involves a story from way back when we were working for the Republic. This happened a few months after the war started, our group was one of the lucky one to get leave at that stage of the war so our General allowed us to do almost anything we wanted for the two day leave on Coruscant. So Prudii, or boss man, decide they were going to go shopping to get us and a few of the guys something special. Unfortunately they got themselves lost in the Coruscant Underlevels, that's what they get for not wearing their armor I say. Any who, they were cornered by a bunch of thugs, a Trando gang."

Rasen noticed something was wrong with the story, "Wait. What about your _buir_'s life rules? Wasn't one about not letting yourself get surrounded?"

Rang started to laugh, "Yeah well…they tell us they were boxed in by their numbers not because they took a wrong turn or something _di'kutla_ like that. They fought and killed the _di'kute_, that's where boss got his SMGs and my LJ,but not without gaining a few scares in exchange. Boss usually can hide his under a shirt or something with sleeves but Prudii, well you've seen his face, most of those came from the Trandos, a few from Geos after this encounter. He didn't let the medics help him, I mean other than to ensure he could still us all of his senses. Psychologically speaking, I think Aran felt bad about what happened to Prudii and pushed that anger out onto Trandos. Which is why he also is having a hard time with the fact that our General is a Trando." He paused for a bit before he turned back to Rasen as he smiled, "Or I could be totally wrong on that assessment and the two subjects are unrelated."

* * *

After speaking the volus known as Pitne For, Shepard had gained access to a crime scene that Samara happened to be at. As his team traveled through the area they met resistance from a small group of Eclipse mercs with a few LOKI mechs. The group was so clustered together, Garrus was able to toss a single Overload tech and affect the entire squad. Krios used the M-97 Viper sniper rifle to take out the three LOKI mechs while Shepard and Garrus eliminated the Eclipse members. Thane was efficient, sidestepping through while removing the three LOKI's heads before their weapons could cool down. Garrus managed to shot down the young sisterhood member before she could reload a new thermal clip into her weapon. Shepard managed to remove the barrier on the vanguard but she threw a Biotic Warp at the Commander, giving the asari ample time to take cover behind a pillar. Thane seemed to have disappeared as Garrus and Shepard prepared to finish the Eclipse off. The asari was too preoccupied with trying to think of a way to kill Shepard, she didn't notice Thane was now beside her. Krios kicked the asari's back leg causing her to collapse to her knees. Thane followed through with a knee to the spine, preventing her from using her shotgun or Biotic abilities against him. He grabbed the asari by her chin and scalp before violently snapping her neck.

Out of the shadows Thane reappeared as he turned to Shepard and Garrus. "Our path to the justicar should be clear now."

Finding the roped off door, the team walked through when suddenly an Eclipse merc was flung at them. Garrus leaned to his right to avoid being hit by the body. The asari lied dead as another asari was seen backing away from something on a balcony. "Those were my best troops." The merc was frightened as her arms couldn't stop shaking as she tried to find more room to back up to.

An asari in high heels and red armor, with an exposed cleavage, was covered in a Biotic glow as she continued to walk closer to the merc. She spoke calmly to the mercenary as she told her, "Tell me what I need to know, and I will be gone from here." The two asari began to circle the other as the asari in red finally asked, "Where did you send her?"

"You think I'd betray her? She would hurt me in ways you can't imagine."

She gave the mercenary one final chance, "The name of the ship. Your life hangs on the answer, Lieutenant."

The merc wasn't willing to talk, "You can kill me, but one of us will take you down, Justicar," aiming her pistol at the justicar's head.

Samara grabbed the merc in a biotic field as she was lifted a few inches off the ground. Suddenly and violently, the justicar flung her arm back as the lieutenant was thrown through the glass and crashed into the crates below. The justicar ran toward where the Eclipse merc landed as she used her biotics to slow her decent. The lieutenant lost her pistol in the crash as she tried to back away from the justicar, only for her neck to be pinned beneath a heel.

Enough force was applied so the merc couldn't move, while not closing her windpipes. The justicar asked one last time, "What was the name of the ship she left on?"

The lieutenant was defiant to the end as she continued to try and remove Samara's foot, "Go to hell."

With that unsatisfying answer, Samara looked down to her as she said peacefully, "Find peace in the embrace of the goddess." Ruthlessly she twisted her heel and forcefully broke the lieutenant's neck. With that over, Shepard and his team moved to meet her. She noticed them as she made introductions, "My name is Samara, a servant of the Justicar Code. My quarrel is with these Eclipse sisters, but I see three well-armed beings before me. Are we friend? Or foe?"

* * *

Miranda's group had proceeded rather swiftly. They had intercepted two broadcasts from Enyala and she seemed close to getting to Oriana. Fortunately the team was finishing another group of Eclipse mercs. Kasumi snuck up to an Eclipse Heavy as she delivered a fatal blow while playfully remarking, "Oh, did I do that?"

With the area clear, Prudii moved up as he waited for the others. Something felt wrong, the area was too quiet, relative to the background noise of a cargo terminal. He knew the Eclipse probably had something worth guarding inside the containers like the last group. As Kasumi investigated, Prudii activated his cloak as he climbed onto one of the larger crates. As Miranda and the girls moved on, a pair of Eclipse mercs moved out as they tried to get the jump on them. Instead Prudii got the jump on them, knocking both down to the ground Prudii extended both vibroblades and jammed them into their necks for swift, clean kills.

Another of Enyala's broadcasts was caught by the radio they had acquired. "Divert everyone except my guard from Niket. I'll handle him and the kid personally."

"Damn it! I'm not letting her get Oriana," fortunately for Miranda the radio they have was set only to listen in on the broadcasts, not to transmit one. Prudii grabbed her shoulder but she didn't seem to care, "Come on, we have to hurry."

Prudii scouted out the area ahead. He found the path narrowed a bit as two Eclipse mercs and a LOKI mech were patrolling the exit. Prudii returned with his report, "Two mercs and a clanker. Bottleneck scenario, enemy's advantage. Wouldn't recommend rushing in."

"Maybe we don't have to," Tali interrupted. "Prudii, let me see your suit's systems."

* * *

"I don't like it… I don't hear anything."

The senior trooper continued to watch as the other paced about, "Our orders are to stale them at any cost. We've got a good hold of this choke point. They ain't goin' to get past us."

There was a flash of blue light in the shape of a 'T' for a moment and the trooper spotted it. "What was that?" The trooper aimed his rifle done the corridor.

"What?" humoring the trooper.

"I saw…I saw something blue…"

"Hey we can tell Enyala we were flashed by an asari," he replied sarcastically.

* * *

Prudii reappeared as he secured his position behind one of the larger crates. "That was too close Tali."

Over the radio she replied, "Sorry, but I was able to acquire the mech's signal. Give me a few seconds to hijack the programming."

Prudii checked his DC-17's clip as he quietly radioed back, "Just tell me when you're ready."

* * *

The merc tried explaining again, "No, I'm telling you it was a light, not just a color. It looked like a tee."

"Whatever kid, if the mech didn't detect anything, there's nothin' out there!"

As the two mercs continued to argue, the LOKI mech's lights turned from red to purple. The mech turned its pistol on the senior trooper and pulled the trigger on the Shuriken pistol. The mech had placed the pistol close enough to the merc his kinetic barrier was not able to react, killing the man instantly. The other Eclipse merc opened fire on the LOKI destroying it with a series of shots into the chest. Without warning a black armored individual with a T-shaped visor that glowed blue appeared out of nowhere. The individual took advantage of his distraction as he fired controlled bursts at the merc, his shields were broken through quickly as the rounds started to hit him until the merc fell due to the injuries. The man walked up to the injured merc as he was trying to crawl away. He tried to call for back up, "This is check point Gamma. We've engaged the target. We…" the man's suit radio was jammed when a pressure was applied to the back of his head. A boot had been placed on the merc's head and without giving an offer of surrender he forcefully snapped the merc's neck with a violent jerk.

* * *

**A/N: **Now we got the ball rolling again. Ok, first off the Predator thing with the eyes(or visor for this instance), it was a warning to Prudii. Tali had to use his suit to aquire the mech's signal but she only had about a five second window to work with and she gave Prudii an alert to if his cloak was going to shut down on him, unfortunately the flash also happened on the external portion of th helmet. As for Tali taking full control over the LOKI, come one Shepard took control of one(multiple if you fail or were on higher difficulty) during the Arrival through a console. Why couldn't Tali, our quarian tech expert do the same thing with only an omni-tool?

**Mando'a Translation:**

Di'kutla(dee-KOOT-lah)- useless, stupid, worthless

Di'kute(DEE-koot-ay)_- _idiot, useless individual, waste of space (lit. someone who forgets to put their pants on)


	43. Sisterly Love

**A/N: **Sorry to the folks waiting for my Revan story, but November 15 has made everything busy for me. All these new games, books, I can only do so much at a time. But one thing has however made me upset; the Revan book. No offense but I loved reading it and all but I'm sorry, I need to vent! Don't worry I won't spoil anything for those who still want to read it later, but Revan, T3, the Exile(who I think got a wierd name but again Cina Hano isn't exactly a good one either), but I'll vent the rest out in my other update for Doomed when I update. Sorry for all that so back to your story…

* * *

With the truth squeezed out of the lying volus, Pitne For, Shepard was able to also convince the merchant to give them access to the Eclipse base. With the warning from Pitne and EDI the team proceeded to decimate the Eclipse sisters blocking their path. Reaching the next door a group of three new Eclipse sisterhood initiates lead by a Vanguard attacked. Shepard took a biotic hit from the vanguard sending him to the floor. Thane quickly started to whittle away at her barrier as Garrus tagged the initiates with his sniper rifle. During the fighting one of the initiates fell back through the door before Shepard riddled the Vanguard with bullets. Without the Vanguard, the others quickly fell to the trio.

With the last of the Eclipse mercs dead, Shepard moved on through the door. He found an M-27 Scimitar Assault Shotgun lying on a desk in the corner. He scanned the weapon for the Normandy's armory and proceeded. As they were passing a door Thane stopped the group as he heard whispering, "Oh, Goddess! Oh, Goddess, don't let them see me. If they do see me, don't let them kill me. What am I doing here?"

Entering the small room the squad surveyed the area. Shepard didn't see anything and was just about to leave as he signaled his squad to move out. Suddenly Shepard heard a weapon activate as he pulled his Carnifex pistol toward the sound. An asari in Eclipse armor slowly came up shouting, "Wait! Stop! I didn't fire my weapon once! I pretended to because the other Eclipse sisters were watching, but I didn't really shoot!" Shepard lowered his weapon and moved closer as the asari continued, "I'm not one of them! I'm new! I thought being Elnora the mercenary would be cool…but I didn't know what they were really like!" Elnora drew a Tempest submachine gun she hid on her back and took aim at Shepard.

Shepard saw that and pulled his weapon up again, "You chose your side, Elnora. And you lost."

Elnora showed her true colors as she shouted, "Screw that, bastard! And screw you!" She fired, but she had forgotten to reload the thermal clip from the last firefight, only managing to fire off two rounds. Shepard's shield flickered for a moment before he and his squad each put a slug into her; Shepard took down Elnora's shield with Garrus and Thane's shots aimed at her heart. Remembering Pitne's words, about each Eclipse sister having to commit a murder before earning the armor, he knew he couldn't just let her leave.

* * *

Meanwhile in another area on Illium, Miranda's group cleared out another Eclipse nest. Having cut through the cargo line Kasumi was investigating the container the group was defending as Prudii played look out. With both containers cleared Kasumi rejoined the others to move on.

As they moved closer to the elevator, EDI was monitoring their progress as she warned them, "Eclipse operatives have attempted to delay you by disabling the elevators. I am overriding their lockdown." But the Eclipse mercs were already waiting for them as a group left out of the elevator.

Prudii opened fire on the first merc out the doors and quickly dropped him. The next one was a salarian engineer and he took cover behind the railing. He deployed a combat drone to try and lure the knock them out of cover. However Tali's combat drone Chiktikka was better constructed and tougher than the salarian's easily overpowering the simple drone. Kasumi suddenly appeared behind both mercs as she gave the two a scare, "Peekaboo!" striking both of them in their spines with her omni-tools. The thief reappeared next to Prudii as she smiled, "What? OK I took your two blades thing, sorry."

Before they could move on the elevator the doors activated as more Eclipse mercs came out. This group had a heavy weapons specialist with an ML-77 Missile Launcher. The merc quickly fired a volley toward Prudii to keep him pinned while the salarian engineer was able to sabotage Tali's omni-tool with an Overload tech attack. Kasumi was able to tip the battlefield to their advantage as she pulled out a white tech mine and tossed it over her cover toward the mercs. There tech mine landed at the feet of the mercs before it detonated. It was a flashbang, and the heavy was incapacitated while the engineer's entire tech arsenal was disabled. Before he could get to cover Miranda and Prudii gunned him down and Tali, after recover from the tech attack and shot down the heavy with the geth shotgun.

The elevator opened up again, this time containing an asari vanguard and a lone trooper. The trooper was easily dealt with but the asari proved to be more of a challenge. The Vanguard launched a biotic attack to keep Miranda at bay while she let the trooper draw attention away from herself long enough for her to get to proper cover. Prudii used hand signals to strategize with the group, careful to use only the more common signs around Miranda. The group started to open fire on the asari's position as Prudii snuck around. The plan seemed successful as the asari returned fire with a biotic attack crushing a crate or two. Prudii activated his cloak moving closer to the asari. Two seconds left, Prudii extended his right knuckle vibroblade and jammed it into her throat as he grabbed the asari's shotgun, pinning it against the crate. He watched as her eyes finally rolled back before releasing his grip on the body.

Just as Prudii finished the asari, the radio came alive with Enyala's voice again. "Niket has reached the terminal. He'll switch the family over to our transport."

"Niket?" Miranda was paralyzed with shock, "But…that can't be right…" As the team entered the elevator, Miranda tried to deny what Enyala had said, "Maybe the captain knows we're listening in and she's feeding misinformation about Niket making a switch. Or maybe it means something else." Prudii activated the elevator as Miranda continued with her denial, "Niket wouldn't do that." Miranda moved to the elevator controls letting her anger out against the machine, "Damn it, why won't this thing go any faster?" forcing it to travel quickly from Dock 78 to Dock 94.

Prudii turned to her as he asked, "How do you know Niket hasn't been against you this whole time?"

Miranda disputed, "He could've turned on me when I ran away. I'm sure my father tried to buy him off. If he didn't do it then, why would he do it now?"

Kasumi then asked a simple question, "Uh, did Niket know you took Oriana from your father when you ran all those years ago?"

Miranda seemed uncomfortable but she told them, "No, he just found out about that recently. It was too personal to involve someone else. I never really thought about it, but maybe...no," quickly ending that thought, "He'd have to understand why I did it. He knows what I went through."

Prudii wasn't so sure, "That status update seemed clear enough."

Miranda continued to defend her old friend, "He wouldn't betray me. We'll be at the transport shuttle in a moment, and we'll clear this up."

* * *

A man was arguing with an asari transport officer trying to convince her to work with him, "Listen to me, I've got authorization to change their booking!"

The officer couldn't do anything, "I'm sorry, sir. We're under security lockdown. Until the situation in the cargo terminal is resolved, no passengers can be rebooked."

The asari Eclipse merc sitting on one of the crates seemed bored as she told the man, "This isn't worth my time, Niket. I get paid regardless of how the girl gets there."

Niket wasn't willing to agree with the merc, "No! I was told that I could handle this my way. We're not traumatizing the family any more than we—" Suddenly the elevator pinged as the door started to open. The group walked out with Miranda talking lead. Niket had to look at her for a few seconds before he recognized her, "Miri."

The merc got up from the crate and pulled out an M-300 Claymore Shotgun, "This should be fun."

The squad pulled out weapons as well, Miranda pulled out her Tempest on Niket, Prudii had an asari vanguard in his DC-17m's sight with Tali using a Phalanx to keep a salarian at bay and Kasumi had her Locust locked on the asari in front. The official wasn't willing to stay to see what would happen and started to run the moment she thought she had a chance. Instead the merc didn't let her leave alive, turning slightly so her shotgun could kill the official before turning back to the others. Miranda was ready to pull the trigger as she muttered to Niket, "You sold me out."

Prudii could hear her anger, along with her sorrow. He noted to Miranda, "No Civvies. We could wipe them all out now."

Miranda wasn't ready just yet, "Not before I get some answers." She turned to her former friend, "Why, Niket? You were my friend. You helped me get away from my father."

Niket had his hands in the air as he answered Miranda, "Yes! Because you wanted to leave. That was your choice! But if I'd known that you'd stolen a baby—"

"I didn't steal her! I rescued her!" Miranda corrected yet again.

Niket didn't seem to see it that way, "From a life of wealth and happiness? You weren't saving her! You were getting back at your father!"

Prudii asked Niket, "Why turn now?"

Niket told them, "They told me you'd kidnapped your baby sister all those years ago. They said I could help get her back peacefully. No trauma to the family. I told them you'd never do that. That they could go to hell. Then you finally told me what you'd done. I called them back that night."

Miranda was conflicted even further now, "Why didn't you call me, Niket? We've been through a lot. You could've at least let me explain."

Niket yelled at her, "I deserved to know that you'd stolen your sister, Miri. I deserved to know you were with Cerberus. But I had to hear it from your father first."

Simply curious, Kasumi had to ask, "So I assume Miranda's father paid you a fortune or two maybe three, am I right?"

"Something in that ballpark."

"Damn it, Niket! You were the only one I trusted from that life."

He replied to Miranda, "He knew you felt that way. That's why he bought me."

Miranda was disgusted by Niket, "So you just took his money."

Niket retorted, "Don't get holy with me, Miri. You took his money for years."

Tali argued to Niket, "Whether or not you agree with Miranda, Oriana has been with her family for years now. You can't just take her away."

Niket told them, "Her father can still give her a better life."

Miranda knew better, "You don't know what my father wants for her."

Niket told Miranda, "I know that I've been poor, Miri. I didn't much care for it."

Miranda tried to reason with him, "He wants to take a girl away from the only family she's ever known. Doesn't that tell you what he really is?"

Prudii turned to Enyala as he noted, "Eclipse have always been rotten, Enyala. Didn't think you'd add kidnapping, too."

Enyala didn't see it that way, "I'm not stealing her. I'm rescuing her, Mandalorian. Come on, Niket. Let's finish this bitch off and get out of here."

Miranda turned her Tempest to Enyala, "Take your best shot."

The Eclipse captain joked, "I was just waiting for you to finish getting dressed. Or does Cerberus really let you whore around it that outfit?"

Prudii turned to Miranda while keeping his rifle at the ready, "If Niket knows about Oriana then your father does too. Relocation won't work."

For some reason Niket corrected him, "Miranda's father has no information about Oriana." Miranda seemed taken aback by this revelation, not sure how to deal with it as he continued, "I knew you had spy programs in your father's system, Miri, so I kept it private. I'm the only one who knows."

Miranda was deeply affected by this news as she prepared for, what she believed to be, the best choice, "Which means that you're the only loose end. This isn't how I wanted it to end, Niket. I'm going to miss you…" Just before Miranda could pull the trigger, Prudii knocked her aim off with his shoulder causing her shot to hit the crate the salarian operative was hiding behind. She quickly recovered her aim before yelling at Prudii, "What the hell was that for?"

Prudii simply answered her, "You don't want to do this."

Miranda shouted at him, "This has to end here. My father will keep trying to find Oriana."

Prudii seemed to have other reasons as to why he stopped her, instead though he told her, "Use Niket, one last time against your father."

Niket quickly changed his mind, with the alternative being death, "I'll…I'll tell him that you got to her first. That I don't know where she is."

Miranda shouted at Niket, "I never want to see you again, Nik—"

Before Miranda could finish, Enyala shot Niket in the back, killing him almost instantaneously. "Done. Now if you don't mind, I have a shipment to deliver."

Miranda, with her jaw slacked as she witnessed her only true friend die before her eyes, enraged grabbed Enyala in a biotic field, lifting the asari commando several feet off the floor. Miranda then shouted, "You'll die for that, bitch!" sending her flying across the room.

The squad ran to cover as the Eclipse squad moved in. Prudii turned to the others, "We'll deal with the fodder. Enyala is all yours, Cerberus." Prudii moved to the far right isle as Kasumi and Tali found cover for the middle isle.

Enyala had called in reinforcements as the elevator behind her opened revealing more troops. Miranda started to square off against Enyala as one of the troopers tried to support her. Instead a blue stream appeared and hit the salarian square in the head. Prudii quickly pulled back as the asari vanguard fired a few rounds of her Scimitar Shotgun at him and started to move closer. The operative deployed a combat drone as the second trooper came to back him up. Tali dispatched with the drone with a shot from the shotgun as Kasumi disappeared to deal with the trooper. "Good night…"

The vanguard thought she might have injured her opponent and moved to finish the job. Instead her target had vanished from the crate he was hiding behind. The Mandalorian appeared from his cloak as he gave her a solid jab into the back with one of his vibroblades. Keeping his fist against her back his blade extended into her spine before he delivered an elbow shot between her shoulder blades. Prudii grabbed his bowcaster as more reinforcements came through the elevator at the other end of the area.

Miranda was able to strip Enyala of her barrier, using an Overload to disable her shotgun while she shot through the biotic barrier with the submachine gun. Enyala still had her biotics to which she used effectively. Enyala crushed some of the crates near Miranda forcing her to a different location, enough time for the shotgun to recover.

The fight against the Eclipse Operative and the duo, Kasumi and Tali, seemed uneven, even as a new trooper came to the operative's aid. Kasumi tossed an Overload to weaken the operative's shields. Tali was able to finish the shield off with a shot from the plasma shotgun, getting rather good distance due to its design. Just as the salarian trooper was about to attack, a green ball of light flew by and struck the human in the head. The spot the light hit was blacked as if burned. The salarian turned to find Prudii with his bowcaster aimed at them. The operative launched an Incinerate tech attack but Prudii was already behind a crate as the fireball tracked him. This diversion was perfect, as Kasumi was able to sneak up to the salarian and strike him in the back. The salarian had carelessly positioned himself next to the railing that overlooked a very long drop. Kasumi's strike was powerful enough to send the salarian over the edge, falling to his death.

Between Miranda and Enyala, the two biotics were now face to face with one another in a biotic power struggle to finish the other off. As the salarian trooper tried to aid Enyala another bolt of light flew true and into his head, killing the trooper. Enyala was distracted for a split-second by the sight of the falling trooper, and that split-second was all Miranda needed. She knocked Enyala back to the floor and crushed the Claymore in her hands. The others simply watched as Miranda pulled out a Carnifex and placed it against Enyala's head. "This is for Niket." A single shot rang out as the splatters of violet blood covered Miranda's arm and boots. The others said nothing as Miranda moved to the elevator, "There could be more Eclipse mercs near the shuttle. I want to make sure Oriana and her family get on safely."

Walking to the elevator Prudii noticed something on one of the small crates next to the elevator. It was a locket, with a picture of a human male with an asari. The metal was well kept but nothing special, though it was probably valuable to the asari in it, sentimentally speaking. He grabbed the pendent and carefully placed it inside one of his empty bandoleer pouches.

With everyone inside, Tali activated the elevator as Miranda expressed her continued denial, "I can't believe Niket sold me out. I didn't even see it coming."

Kasumi tried to cheer her up, "Oh come on now. Even with all of those genetic mods and everything else you've got, you're only human. We all make mistakes every now and then."

"But I let it get personal…and I screwed up." After pounding her fist against the wall, Miranda turned to Prudii as she let out her anger against the heavily armor man for his actions prior, "Why didn't you let me kill him? I could have handled that. But watching him get gunned down by that asari bitch…"

Prudii waited for her, thinking she might have shed a tear at that moment. When she did stop he explained his actions, "He was your clan and he may have betrayed you, but you still cared for him. It was in your voice."

Miranda finally accepted the truth after hearing it from another, "You're right. And my father knew it. He used that against me. It's always been like this. My father gave me anything I ever wanted, but there was always a hook, an angle for his long-term plan. I threw away everything he ever gave me when I ran. Except Niket. Weakness on my part."

Tali didn't see that as the healthiest thing to do, "You can't just toss aside everything you care about just to be safe."

Miranda didn't seem to mind, already going through it once, "It's okay. My father hurt me, but he didn't break me. As much as he tried to turn me into exactly what he wanted…I'm my own person."

Kasumi then asked after the air seemed clear, "So…any other old friends your father might try to buy against you?"

Miranda shook her head, "No. I cut ties with everyone else. Anyone I'm close to now works for Cerberus…or Shepard. My father's powerful, but he won't cross the Illusive Man."

Prudii added, "You still have Oriana."

Miranda scoffed, "My father didn't give her to me. I rescued her. But…yes." Miranda finally smiled, "You're right. I still have something. Thank you. Everyone."

* * *

After a few discreet sweeps of the area the group reunited near the elevator they came out of earlier. "No sign of Eclipse. It looks like we're clear."

Prudii scoffed, "Two things you can count on from Eclipse, overkill and overconfidence."

Miranda looked to the family as he pointed them out for the others, "There she is. She's safe…with her family." She smiled at the sight but she was also depressed slightly, for reason Prudii could guess. "Come on. We should go."

Prudii took a recording of Rang from one of their earlier mission for the Republic and used it completely out of context, "Oh come on, can't we say hello? Even just a tiny bit."

Kasumi giggled a bit as she whispered to him, "I hope you can give me a copy of that. I want to pester him about it later if we ever work together again."

Miranda could tell it was a recording but she knew what he was trying to say to her. "It's not about what I want. It's about what's right for her. The less she knows about me, the better. She's got a family. A life. I'll just complicate that for her."

Prudii turned toward Oriana, "Cerberus…Miranda…" finally acknowledging her name after seeing her dedication to her sister she had cared for so long from a distance, "no one is meant alone, we all need family."

Miranda turned to Prudii, "But my father…"

Prudii stopped her, "We Mandalorians have a say 'family is more than blood'. He's your prime clone, but you never truly had parents. I too was grown in a tube, alongside millions of others with the same DNA. But unlike you I had a mother and brothers, those who cared for and loved me and those I equally loved and cared for. We've lost a few brothers during training sims and live ordinance exercises, but my mother was always there for us. The mightiest of krogan need a family to be as strong as they are, though they have a different view on family."

Miranda never expected to hear such a view point, or even hear of others who understood her upbringing. "I've never thought about any of that. I was always so focused on making sure Oriana was safe and had a chance to grow up normally, I…"

Prudii placed a hand on her shoulder, "Go to her. Talk to your sister. Let her know she has a sister who will always be there for her and protect her. Be the family you've always wanted but never had."

"Yes…" Miranda smiled at finally having a chance to speak directly to Oriana.

Kasumi gave her a gentle nudge, "Go on. We'll wait until you finish your sisterly chat," adding her rather devious smile to push her forward.

As Miranda moved closer to her sister, Tali expressed her surprise of Prudii's actions, "I wasn't expecting you to try and save Niket back there. It sounded like you wanted to kill him at first."

Prudii continued to watch as the two started a conversation before replying, "If he was a Mandalorian, and if he did betray us like that, he'd been dead the moment he was in my scope. But he wasn't Mandalorian, nor is Miranda." He turned to Tali as he told her directly, "Vhonte taught us a few phrases that are crucial to the Mandalorians. Another one: _Ke barjurir gar'ade, jagyc'ade kot'la a dalyc'ade kotla'shya._"

Kasumi smiled, "That's nice…" She turned to Prudii after the silent awkward moment passed, "Could you translate that for us now?"

Prudii shut off his helmet's speakers, replying on their comm channels. "Train your sons to be strong but your daughters to be stronger." Prudii turned his head slightly to Miranda as he commented, "Miranda is already strong. Maybe too strong for her own good. This is something she wanted…and needed."

* * *

**A/N: **Another thanks to 'blockotext' for speeding us along. I was planning to cut it before they saw her Oriana, but I though there was no need to cut that from this(despite the word count I would prefer). For those who read my other story I'll have something up hopefully before the end of the week.

**Mando'a Translation: **I'm just putting the phrase down here for the pronunciation for those interested in saying it right.

Aliit ori'shya tal'din.(Ah-LEET-or-EESH-yah-tal-DEEN)- Family is more than blood. *I know Prudii only said the translation for this Mandalorian saying, but I'm sure there are those who wanted to know the Mando'a for it anyway.

Ke barjurir gar'ade, jagyc'ade kot'la a dalyc'ade kotla'shya_._(Kay bar-joo-REER garh-AH-day, JAH-geesh-AH-day koht-la Ah DAH-leesh-AH-day koht-la-SHEE-ah)-Train your sons to be strong but your daughters to be stronger.


	44. And Justice for All

**A/N: **Whoo, another chapter out, and another step closer to ME3. Saw the preview vid from the VGA and that only made me want to play the game now! I hope I can say what it was without spoiling anything for you but I can say it involved a thresher maw, but I also have mixed feeling for Bioware's next project, Command and Conquer Generals 2(not much of an RTS fan if you can't tell)…

* * *

Shepard, Garrus and Thane had proceeded through a hangar bay under guard by the Eclipse. They even found evidence via a journal recording of Elnora that she was the murderer of the volus Dakni Kur, a business partner of Pitne For. Shepard and the team were in the middle of a battle with a Mantis Gunship. Garrus used the same weak spots against the gunship as he did against Tarak's gunship back on Omega. But these Eclipse were pushing the gunship to its limit. After making a strafing run with its missiles, the gunship started to drop off FERIS mechs. As Garrus and Thane took down the mechs from a distance, Shepard switched his sniper rifle for the ML-77 Missile Launcher he had on his back. With over twenty missiles ready to fire, the Commander let out a volley of five missiles that homed on the gunship. The missiles each hit their mark as the fifth one destroyed the guship and all inside. With the area cleared Garrus started to work on the locked door blocking their path.

Once inside Shepard found a shipping manifest incriminating Pitne For of selling two-thousand units of Minagen X3 and six-hundred units of red sand to the Eclipse. In the next area was another volus in a white exosuit. The volus dozily turned away from a vending machine as he bumped into Shepard's legs. The volus was slow to recover from the accidental encounter before spouting nonsense. "I am a biotic god! I think things—and they happen! Fear me, lesser creatures, for I am biotics made flesh!" The volus did display biotic abilities, though comparable to that of infant using a baby walker.

Shepard and the others could easily see the volus was drug, as Shepard tried to calm him down, "You need help."

The dazed volus shouted back, "You need help! You stand before the mightiest biotic ever. Yes, the asari injecting so many drugs into me was terrifying. But then I began to smell my greatness! They may laugh when I fall over, but they don't know what I know in my head—that I know that I am amazingly powerful. Fear me!" the confused volus shouted as he pointed to Garrus. The turian could only shrug at the sight to the others, unsure of how to respond to the little guy.

Curious about how he came to be within the Eclipse base, Shepard asked the volus hoping for a clear answer, "Are you part of Pitne For's trading group?"

The volus quickly replied, "When I was mortal, I worked for Pitne. Poor soul is probably terrified that I have not returned."

Garrus didn't recall anything of the sort, "He hasn't reported your disappearance. Probably so his departure won't get delayed."

Thane also added, "I get the distinct impression Pitne prefers money to friends."

"Bah!" The volus didn't seem to care either way, "I will wreak a just revenge upon his people! But first…the leader of these mercenaries is in the next room. I shall toss Wasea about like a rag doll!"

Garrus turned to the Commander, "Shepard, this guy couldn't tie his bootlace, much less fight."

The volus continued on, "I will tear her apart! My biotics are unstoppable!"

Shepard tried to reason with the volus, "Wasea will tear you apart. Take a nap—you'll feel better."

The volus was insulted by such an insinuation, "Are you mad? I'm unstoppable! Feasting on her biotic-rich blood will be the last step of my ascension to godhood!" Shepard tipped the volus with gentle tap his back. As the volus recovered from the fall, he seemed lost, "But…great wind! Biotic god! I'm…I…what was I saying? I'm…tired. You…may be right." Staggering off the volus stated, "Yes, I'm tired…I'll nap. Destroy the universe later…"

Garrus couldn't help to laugh at the sight as he joked, "So much for godhood."

Thane quietly told the volus, "Sleep well. And dream of bulbous women."

* * *

Moving to the Normandy, Miranda and the other passed by an asari overlooking a balcony as she was on a call with someone. Prudii heard her mention that she lost a token given to her by her bondmate. While the asari seemed to be distressed and the other continued toward the Normandy, Prudii pulled out the locket he had found and activated his stealth. Prudii quietly started to place the chain around the asari's neck. As he reappeared, the pendent now dangled just a bit above the asari's chest. Prudii connected the chain, ensuring the asari heard the click before he let the pendent drop against her chest, letting the small weight drop against her chest. For a moment the asari seemed to be in disbelief as she hesitated to touch what she believed to be a mere illusion. The moment she knew it wasn't fake, the asari started to cry as she carefully embraced the small locket between her hands, "Oh. Steven." Unsure of how the locket found its way back to her, the asari gazed upon the setting sun for a moment before leaving the area. With that sight Prudii silently disappeared and reunited with the others.

Kasumi saw the whole thing though, despite what Prudii might have wanted, as she commented, "Nice. Very romantic too. I would've just placed it in her hand or pocket, though I think it was better this way. Are you sure you don't want to let her know you found it? She might have given you something."

Prudii disagreed, almost wholeheartedly even with his tone, "No. Don't need payment for something like that. Family is family, that what matters."

Kasumi almost missed working with this grump, though she'd prefer Rang for his willingness to joke about things. "Let hurry, we don't want the others to think we're doing something."

While in decontamination, Miranda turned to the others, "Remember, what happened on Illium, didn't happen."

Prudii was ready for that situation, "What are you talking about, Cerberus? I had to meet a contact about a shipment. I didn't notice you were gone," he almost seemed too natural but it was more than enough to fool most of the crew. That was just when the door opened and Prudii walked away from them.

* * *

Entering the room the volus indicated was where the Eclipse Captain was in, the asari was reading a datapad while drinking a glass. She didn't seem to notice Shepard or his team, but she wasn't as oblivious as she seemed, finishing the glass and placing it down on the desk, addressing them directly, "Everything's gone to hell since we smuggled that filthy creature off-world. First a justicar shows up, now you." Wasea placed the datapad down onto the desk and walked out from behind the desk, "At least I can take pleasure in turning your head into a pulpy mass." Wasea grabbed one of the Minagen X3 canisters and tossed it at Shepard. Thane rolled out of the way as Garrus jumped out of the way. Shepard barely had a chance to move out of the way when the canister exploded behind him.

* * *

After Lissarkh's lessons, Aay'han was speaking with Bev and Aran in the mess about the crew. "Interesting color choices for some of these guys. So I'm assuming you told them about certain colors and what they mean to a Mandalorian."

"A few took them to heart." Aran started to point out a few, "Vren, the big krogan with gold and orange armor, he's been collecting armor pieces from leading Blood Pack members we've been killing and planned to send the set to the Blood Pack on Tuchanka, storm and wipe them out the krogan clans that destroyed his. Though some of the crew just has their color just because, like Nyona. She just has the blue and white for the ascetics."

Over the speakers Rang called out for Aran, "Calling Aran, this is Rang. We've got a new job, and it's a dozy."

* * *

The trio entered the CIC where Rang greeted them, "Hey guys. So boss man, the job comes from a research station over in the Caleston Rift. Their magnetic shield is starting to fail on them but none of the eggheads can reach the controls."

"Why's that?"

Rang pulled up the information, "Well advisor, the station happens to be rather close to an unstable star that's about to blow off a solar storm." Rang then added his usual personal view of the matter, "Now I personally don't want to be anywhere near a light year of a solar storm, that said, who's the guy risking their neck?" Rang knew he didn't need to ask if they were taking the job, just how they were going to execute it.

Beviin noted, "A krogan could probably survive a solar flare or two."

"Or we don't risk anyone at all," Aran moved over the comm. as he hoped to catch Dagger in the hangar, "Dagger, can you hear me?"

Swoop responded, "Dagger and Jak have their hands full. What do you need Aran?"

"I want to know if the astromech can survive a solar storm."

Swoop turned to C3 as she continued to help with a few new tweaks Jak wanted to the ball turret. "Yo, C3! Can you survive a solar flare?" The little droid wasn't sure if her circuits or memory core could take a full blast from the em radiation. But she says she's willing to risk it if you want her to. If I could, I'd rather not let her do it."

Aran turned to his brothers, "Bev, Kix, get us to the Caleston Rift in five. Rang, get me a planet and a system. Someone prep the shuttle for an automated flight." Aran took a terminal as a navigator as the others of the crew started to work, as the Tervho moved toward the Minos Wasteland's mass relay.

* * *

Entering the Solveig system Kix noticed the star in the system, "I'd hate to be around when this star go."

"Activating magnetic shielding."

Dagger and the gunship crew were speaking with C3 before her departure for her solo mission. "Are you absolutely certain that you don't want at least someone with you, just in case?"

C3 was certain. She didn't want to put anyone into a dangerous situation just so she could be safe. She also confessed that she had noticed the quarian engineer had been watching her and she wanted to prove to this new crew that she is willing to do anything to help everyone, even at the expense of her own existence.

Swoop didn't like her plan, "There has to be another way to earn everyone's trust."

C3 didn't agree. She has read about the laws against AI research and what had happened between the quarians and geth. C3 said her goodbyes just as a precaution if she doesn't manage to return. The astromech entered the shuttle and the gunship crew left the hangar so the hangar bay could open.

The unmanned shuttle few through what was left of the magnetic shielding of the colony on Surtur's moon Sinmara. The shuttle made touchdown onto the isolated platform to allow the little astromech droid to find and repair the shield generator. C3 had to use her jet boosters to climb down a small flight of stairs. C3 reported that she found a damaged power generator, likely the cause of the systems failure. As the droid moved closer to the shield controls, barriers were erected that blocked her path. C3 was able to use the omni-tool built by Forta to slice the security protocols to grant herself access. Climbing the new group of stairs, C3 now found three separate control units all connected to a control switch that seemed only capable of starting up one system at a time. Using the knowledge base within her database and everything else she has learned since, C3 shifted the connection to the cooling unit and activating the system first. C3 hurried back to the control of the switch and transferred the power to the shield generator. Just as she reactivated the shield generator C3's sensor detected a powerful solar flare that would probably break though the current shield, killing all of the researchers. C3 diverted the control to the shield controls and had to quickly bypass the security programs to activate the shield just before the radiation reached the research station. C3 reported that the mission was a success and she was able to activate the shield before the solar flare could affect the station. She also advised to have the damaged generator repair before the next solar storm occurs.

Dagger and Swoop congratulated her on a job well done, "I'm sure the researcher will send an engineer team over to work on that right away, or Rang might be able to convince them to have the engineers here do that for an extra fee."

"Come on home, C3. I'm going to give you an extra special shining."

* * *

As more Eclipse sisters continued to come to the area and kept Shepard's squad pinned, Wasea used her biotics to lift two large crates into the air. She threw the containers into an area behind the desk and retreated to the upper area. Garrus finished the last Eclipse initiate before the team moved up, only to find more Eclipse sisters ready to aid Wasea. Wasea continued to throw Minagen X3 canisters at the group, using the toxicity of the material to try and weaken them. Garrus focused on keeping the Heavy's and the Initiates pinned as Thane and Shepard focused on bringing down Wasea before more Eclipse reinforcements can arrive. Shepard fired a Concussive Shot at Wasea but she grabbed one of her Initiates using her biotics and used her as a living shield to take the hit for her. Thane followed up with a series of shots from the Kassa Locust, finally breaking through her last defense. Garrus got a headshot off a Heavy, but not before the asari could fire a rocket at him. Fortunately the sniper shot traveled much faster than the rocket, leaving Garrus time to return to cover behind a crate.

Another Initiate tried to move in closer to bring them down, but Shepard tossed his Katana Shotgun to Garrus, who gunned down the young asari before she had a chance to do anything worthwhile to the group. Wasea tried to attack Thane with a biotic blast, but the assassin was moving too fast and the biotic attack crushed a crate instead. With that distraction Shepard and Garrus focused on Wasea, Shepard injured her leg giving Garrus a chance to get a headshot, killing the captain before she hit the floor. The other Eclipse in the area weren't going to give up and continued to press on. Thane had found a way behind the two sisters as he grabbed one by the head and snapped her neck. Before the last sister could get a beat on Thane, he grabbed her assault rifle's sight and delivered a killing blow to her throat. As the last of the Minagen X3 dissipated and the air cleared, Thane commented, "Some record of that ship must be around here."

Garrus made a suggestion, "Maybe that datapad Wasea had earlier." As Shepard picked up the datapad, Garrus was able to see a ship's name listed among other things, "That must be the ship Samara was looking for."

Thane asked the Commander, "Should we head back to the police station and give her the name, or look around first?"

With the datapad in hand, Shepard started to walk toward the door they entered, "Let's give her the name and keep moving."

* * *

As Shepard was about to walk into the police station, Pitne For stopped him, "Thank you for removing the Eclipse threat, Earth-clan! It will take them months to rebuild their organization. Also…merely out of curiosity: When you were poking about, did you perhaps run across a shipping manifest that belongs to me?"

Shepard flashed to datapad to Pitne as he noted, "You never know when something like this might come in handy."

Pitne tried to convince Shepard to return it, "If it might change your mind, Earth-clan, returning that manifest would be very profitable for you. If you give it to the detective, her reward will be a pat on the back."

Shepard ignored Pitne's attempted bribe as he found Samara and Detective Anaya. Samara was meditating on a counter behind Anaya. "I've got the name of the ship. Your fugitive left here two days ago on the AML Demeter."

Samara wasn't expecting him to return so quickly, "Shepard, you impress me. You fulfilled your part of the bargain, and I will fulfill mine." Getting down from the counter, Samara bowed slightly to Anaya, "I am ready to leave immediately, if that will satisfy your superiors, Detective?"

Anaya, still sitting at her desk, replied, "You're free to go, Justicar. It has been an honor having you in my station. And it's nice you didn't kill me, too."

Shepard provided her with directions to where the ship was, "The Normandy is docked near the main trading floor. I'll see you aboard."

Samara stopped him, "I must be sworn to your service, so that I am never forced to choose between your orders and the Code." Samara's eyes began to glow before she closed them as she knelt down to the floor. Anaya got out of her seat out of respect or merely to spectate, "By the Code, I will serve you, Shepard. Your choices are my choices, your morals are my morals. Your wishes are my code." Suddenly biotic energy started to emit from Samara's body, maintaining it even as she stood up until it finally dissipated and her eyes opened.

Anaya whispered into Shepard's ear, "I never thought I'd see a justicar swear an oath like that."

Samara then warned Shepard, "If you make me do anything extremely dishonorable, I may need to kill you when I am released from my oath."

Shepard respectfully accepted her oath, "I can see that this is a very important act, Samara. Thank you."

Samara then admitted as Anaya took her seat, "Truly, the life of a justicar can get lonely. I admit, I am looking forward to serving with a company of honorable heroes. Shall we return to your ship?"

Shepard stopped Samara, "I need to speak to the detective."

Detective Anaya openly admitted to the commander, "Thanks for getting Samara out of my district. I can tell my granddaughters about meeting a justicar. And you've just upped my chances of living long enough to have grandkids."

Shepard pulled out a datapad with a recording taken from a computer with the Eclipse compound, "I have proof that Eclipse killed the volus merchant"

"Let's see what you've got there." Shepard tossed the datapad to Anaya's desk. "Interesting, but I can't verify it. It would be inadmissible."

Samara intervened, using her status to help, "I vouch for Shepard and any evidence he brings forward."

Anaya respected Samara, both as an individual and as a justicar, "I accept the judgment of the justicar. Thanks, Shepard. I wasn't sure about trusting a stranger—and a human, at that. But you came through." Anaya took a moment to skim through the information, "Never heard of this Elnora. Sounds like she was just starting her career. Good thing you cut it short. Okay, enough with all the congratulations, I've still got a spiraling crime rate."

Shepard also put out evidence against Pitne, providing another datapad to Anaya, "I have proof that Pitne For smuggled in red sand and illegal weapons tech."

"I'll send in some officers to arrest him and his cohorts. This is a big help, Shepard. I can't do much to thank you, but we do have a small discretionary bounty fund. Take this." With that the group left the area and took the taxi back to Nos Astra.

* * *

**A/N: **Next I think we're going to take a trip to a Collector ship or another loyalty mission, haven't decided between the two(but I do have a mission lined up for the latter). The 'Endangered Research Station' mission, to me, is another mission that doesn't seem like you just happen to stumble upon it happening. Majority of the N7 missions I can let by and say 'OK, plausible' but this and a few others are too specific for that(in my mind).

**Mando'a Translation: **Another dry spot


	45. The call from space

**A/N: **Sorry to all those waiting for my next story, trying to make them 'perfect' and splitting what I have up into my '3000' word average. Now back to the Mandalorians…

* * *

While a few of the Tervho's engineers aided with the repair to the research station's power generator for their shield, Rang found some time to fully examine the Collector cadavers. Simply opening one while inside a moving gunship gave him little information, visual information such as all vital organs being replaced with cybernetics. Now with lab equipment he planned to perform a full series of test. After spending a few hours isolated with the Collectors, Rang found some interesting details. He called for a gathering of his fellow Mandalorians and the professor so he could show them what he had discovered. "Nice of everyone to be here. Thanks, and now I get to blow a few minds out of their head."

Nyona shouted, "Stop with your dramatics and just tell us."

Rang turned to the asari commando and gave her a Prudii face he had been practicing to use, as he mumbled, "Spoilsport." Rang displayed a holo of a double helix DNA strand. "This here is the DNA a majority of lifeforms have. And this," the holo now showed a quadruple helix, "is a strand recovered from ancient Prothean ruins."

Pyth stopped Rang for a moment with a correction, "Actually, documented report only provide partial fragments and damaged samples being the only thing recovered about the Protheans themselves. That appears to be either an emulation or a combination of some of the samples through elimination and plain guess work."

"Well I didn't have to do any of that. I had to do a lot of comparisons before I was certain." Pyth was even more interested now after hearing that. "But this strand came from the Collectors."

Prath could see where Rang was taking this, "Then that means the Collectors are Prothean."

"Right on the nail mister banker, or rather half-nail." Rang could hear and see the clamor this news caused. "Their genetic code is so heavily modified to the point that almost anyone who understands genetics could see the tailoring. Hell the Kaminoans would kill them because of how obviously butchered the DNA is, ain't that right boss man?"

Kix tried to wrap his mind to this strange news, "Wait, so the Protheans aren't extinct, they're just Collectors now?"

Tare didn't think so, "No, these things…these monsters aren't…"

Rang finished Tare's scoff for him, "Calling the Collectors slaves would be an insult, to the slaves. With the cybernetics inside one, and I literally mean one, their closer to battle droids that smell when you kill it. _Mirshe_ replaced with a processor, _sur'haaise_ are cameras, no _uram_, a complete overhaul of the respiratory function, the digestive system is a battery pack that could be recharged…"

Aran stopped his brother from going any further, "Alright we get it, they aren't really alive anymore. So do you have any recommendations?"

Rang gave his usual smirk, "Other than my usual go to; blow the crap out of everything, not really. Though it does explain why they didn't use any military tactics on Horizon, because they can't thing without their puppet master."

Pyth then pointed out a simple solution, "So you either cut the strings or destroy the puppet, though the best answer would be to kill the puppet master with the only problem being locating him or her."

Aran answered, "We do know the puppet master…the Reapers."

Beviin didn't seem to view the situation as such, "Sir, the Reapers could simply be a myth, at best they might be an intelligent race that is concealing themselves behind inactive relays. We do know that the Collectors are real and they pose a very real threat. But what evidence is there that they exist?"

Aay'han finally spoke during this meeting, "Well sometimes all you really need is a little faith that your answer will present itself."

* * *

After acquainting Samara with the Normandy crew and placing her in the Starboard Observation, the Normandy received an urgent transmission from the Illusive Man. Shepard received word from the head of Cerberus that a turian scout flotilla was able to disable a Collector vessel somewhere beyond the Korlus system. Their mission is to board the Collector ship while in disrepair and find data on where their base or homeworld is. Just like Horizon, Shepard wanted a bigger group to accompany him. Garrus, Grunt, Thane and Samara were to act as the backup squad while Shepard, Tali, her unofficial protector Prudii, and Mordin would try to investigate the ship without drawing attention to themselves. As the others suited up for zero atmosphere, Shepard walked up behind Joker as the Normandy made her approach.

Joker heard Shepard walking up behind him as he reported, "We have a visual on the Collector ship, Commander."

EDI had already scanned the ship the moment they were within range. She was just receiving the data as the AI also reported, "Very low emissions. Passive infrared temperatures suggest most systems are offline. Thrusters are cold."

Even from their current distance Joker was astounded, "That thing's massive. How the hell did the turians take it out?"

EDI couldn't explain it either, "Ladar scans do not detect any hull breaches on the side facing us. I detect no mass effect field distortions. It appears the drive core is offline."

Joker plotted the ships course, "Rendezvous in thirty seconds, Commander. Good luck." Shepard gave his friend a gentle pat on the shoulder as he left to join the others in the hangar.

Circling the ship once, the Normandy found a small opening that appeared to function as a shuttle bay. The small Kodiak landed as the teams stepped out. Everyone took a moment to gaze upon the vessel's design, as Garrus joked about the looks, "I love what they've done with the place."

Even their resident quairan was surprised by the ship's layout, "I've never seen a ship like this before."

Mordin looked at the hard to track lines, angles, as he noted, "Somewhat resembles an insect hive."

Grunt snorted as he punched his fists together, "As long as I get to kill things I don't care."

The Mandalorian however didn't seem that phased, already with his weapon at the ready and checking the walls themselves. Tali reached out to Prudii as she asked, "Prudii? Are you okay?"

Prudii continued to examine the walls and ceiling, replying, "This is just like the Geo catacombs, but in space." Prudii pulled out his pistol as he took aim and fired off a few rounds, "Geonosians could carve small crevasses or windows into the stone so their warriors could hide in plain sight, ambush the unprepared. Lost a lot of brothers because of them."

As planned, Garrus was in command of Grunt, Thane and Samara to secure the shuttle's location while the others tried to find something. EDI soon reported directly to Shepard, "Penetrating scans have detected an access node to uplink with Collector databanks. Marking location to your hardsuit computer." As the team proceeded they found portions of ceiling replaced with strange egg-like orbs that would pus irregularly, they had a compound structure that were luminescent. EDI quickly reported again, "Shepard, I have compared the ship's EM signature to known Collector profiles. It is the vessel you encountered on Horizon."

Shepard posed a possible theory as to how the ship was disabled, "Maybe the defense towers softened it for the turians."

Mordin also commented, "Could find missing colonists aboard. If they're still alive." Finding two of the pods lying about, Mordin examined the steaming pod, "Same containers as on Horizon. Only empty."

Tali could only imagine with the colonists must have gone through, "It must have been horrible. Trapped in these pods. Helpless. Completely at the mercy of the Collectors."

Continuing further Prudii pulled out both of his recon droids to keep their eyes on the walls and ceilings for the group as they continued their investigation of the rather empty ship. Passing what appeared to be an archway, Mordin was the first to spot it, "Horrible. Despicable," were the only words the doctor could use to describe the pile of corpses and remains.

Tali was hesitant to ask as they got closer to the pile but she couldn't understand the thought behind it, "Why would the Collectors just leave a pile of bodies lying around?"

Mordin knew all too well, having seen it from others before, "Test subjects from control group. Discarded after experiment was over."

Prudii offered the pile his condolences without the others hearing him, "May your struggles come to an end as you join anew."

Shepard could only think that this was a saving grace, relatively speaking, "There are worse thing than death—like being a test subject for twisted aliens."

Mordin still disagreed with the process, "This was wrong. Inhumane. Even if Collectors needed to kill for experiments, could have ended lives painlessly."

Tali still felt sick to her stomach, "I know you're right, but it doesn't make me feel any better."

Moving through the next passageway, the team found two pods laid on metal tables as though they were studying the content inside. As Shepard started to access the only active terminal, Tali took a peek inside as Prudii continued to act as sentry. "That's a Collector. Were they experimenting on one of their own?"

Shepard called out to the Normandy's AI, "EDI, I'm uploading the data from this terminal. See if you can figure out what they were up to."

"Data received. Analyzing." While EDI reported her findings, Prudii commanded one of the recon droids to take a better look at the Collector. The feed opened in a small square at the corner of his HUD as he continued to keep his eyes on their surroundings. Prudii activated his comm. again just as EDI reported, "They reveal something remarkable. A quad-strand genetic structure, identical to traces collected from ancient ruins. Only one race is known to have this structure: the Protheans."

In both shock and horror, Shepard stepped back from the dead Collector, "My god. The Protheans didn't vanish. They're just working for the Reapers now."

EDI corrected Shepard's statement, "These are no longer Protheans, Shepard. Their genes show distinct signs of extensive genetic rewrite. The Reapers have repurposed them to suit their needs."

Prudii could only scoff at the news, "Someone should have seen this one coming."

EDI provide Prudii with a valid reason as to why, "No one has had an opportunity to study a Collector genetic code in this detail. I have already matched two thousand alleles to recorded fragments. This Collector likely descends from a Prothean colony in the Styx Theta cluster. But there are signs of extreme alteration. Three fewer chromosomes. Reduced heterochromatin structure. Elimination of superfluous 'junk' sequences."

Shepard was disgusted, "The Reapers didn't wipe out the Protheans. They turned them into monsters and enslaved them. Still, they're working for the Reapers now. And we have to stop them."

Tali commented, "No species should have to suffer through that."

"Let's find what we need before the Collectors come to salvage this vessel. Move out." Just as the squad was about to leave the area, Shepard found a pile of weapons the Collectors must have collected from their victims.

Shepard grabbed the M-76 Revenant Light Machine Gun and Prudii spotted something he had been eying for some time. It was an M-98 Widow Anti-Materiel Rifle. Prudii wasn't one for taking weapons from fallen enemies if he didn't have too but for this instance he wanted the weapon for himself. Prudii could feel the weight of the sniper rifle despite have become accustom to the twenty kilograms of his armor. Folding the rifle back up, Prudii placed it just underneath his pack.

Continuing through the Collector ship, the squad found several pods lying about on the floor as well as two very spacious tunnels leading up filled with pods, as Tali denoted, "Look—on the ceiling. More of those strange pods."

Mordin wasn't even planning to count them, "Hundreds, at least. Wonder how may are full."

"Too many," Shepard said as he pressed forward trying not to look at them.

EDI unknowingly added to Shepard's discomfort, "I detect no signs of life in the pods, Shepard. It is probable the victims inside died when the ship lost primary power."

Shepard found a damaged console was able to salvage some of the tech from it as well as a terminal with research notes about damage protection. Prudii seemed even more edgy now as the path turned uphill. Joker contacted Shepard as he informed him, "Commander. You gotta hear this. On a hunch, I asked EDI to run an analysis on this ship."

EDI explained her analysis, "I compared EM profile against data recorded by the original Normandy two years ago. They are an exact match."

"The same ship dogging me for two years? Way beyond coincidence."

Prudii had a possible answer, "Ship this size takes time to build unnoticed. Maybe this is the only ship the Collectors have. I know the Seps only made two Subjugator-class heavy cruisers, about the same size as this ship, maybe a bit bigger."

Joker still didn't like this as he warned Shepard, "Something doesn't add up, Commander. Watch your back."

Finally reaching the main chamber, the team was awestruck, "Keelah."

Mordin even couldn't imagine this chamber full, "So many pods. Could depopulate all Terminus Systems, still wouldn't fill them."

Prudii could only think of one reason for gutting a ship for so much space, "They're preparing to take Earth."

Shepard wasn't going to let that happen, "Not if we stop them."

The path led down into a small pit with a metal platform surrounded by large pipes. Tali pointed out the console, "There—on the platform. Looks like some kind of control panel."

Mordin also pointed out an unusual oddity, "Lack of Collectors seems odd. Alive or dead. Suggest caution."

Prudii continued to walk backward as he told the salarian, "What do you think I've been doing?"

At the active console, Shepard activated his omni-tool and started to work, "EDI? I'm setting up a bridge between you and the Collector ship. See if you can get anything useful from the data banks."

* * *

Several different screens appeared before Joker and the AI got to work, "Data mine in progress, Shepard." EDI was quickly scanning through everything she could as the data streamed in.

Suddenly, one by one, each of the screens turned to white noise and the holodisplay was taken over by an unusual looking Collector with four legs and six arms. The hologram disappeared a few moments after Joker witnessed it. "Uh…that can't be good."

* * *

A flash of light emanated from the control panel as it shut itself down and pillars seemed to fill the pipes. Shepard contacted Joker with a status update, "Everyone's all right, Joker. What just happened?"

Joker quickly answered, "Major power surge. Everything went dark, but we're back up now."

EDI reported, "I managed to divert the majority of the overload to non-critical systems." Prudii caught something out of the corner of his eye as he aimed his rifle above, "Shepard it was not a malfunction. This was a trap."

The platform they were on started to rise and rotate at the same time. As the team struggled to maintain their balance, Shepard was hoping the AI could do something, "We need a little help here, EDI…"

"I am having trouble maintaining connection. There is someone else in the system."

The platform made an abrupt halt as Prudii fell on to his pack. His HUD indicated his suit's emergency beacon had been activated. Prudii rolled over and removed his pack to deactivate the signal, not that the Collectors weren't already aware of their presence.

* * *

Beviin was cleaning his armor when the inside of his helmet started to flash. Bev put on the helmet and saw it was Prudii's emergency beacon. "Sir!"

The signal, now deactivate, was still traceable. Rang pointed out, "Boss, I think we should follow through. It'd be nice to see the grouch and if he is really in trouble we should go help."

Aran and the others worked with the data and found where the coordinate originated. "It near the Korlus system? Why are they out there?"

Aay'han didn't care, "Doesn't matter. We've got a brother that might be in trouble, we help him," remembering the pain he went through of losing Sigma Squad the first time.

"Mandalorians, load up!" The Tervho moved to the nearest relay to reach Prudii.

* * *

Prudii used the Widow against the Scion on the platform that was circling theirs as Shepard and the others took on the Collectors on a second platform that attached to theirs. Mordin quickly dispatched with the first with an Incinerate tech as the bug burned to ash. The Scion was tough, taking the first shot to the face and still standing. The second shot punctured the husk's lump back as the goo exploded out. As the last Collector became 'possessed' by Harbinger and the platform with the dead husk flew off, a new platform appeared with three Collectors.

Prudii activated his Tactical Cloak and climbed up to the new platform. The commando pulled out both of his vibroblades and jammed them into the backs of two of the Collectors while Shepard finished the third off with a burst of shots from the Revenant.

With a new Scion arriving, Prudii jumped back behind cover before the Scion could use its biotic blast. EDI reported to the squad with a status update, "Eighty-four percent."

Shepard shouted, "EDI! Get us out of here!"

EDI retorted, "I am simultaneously fighting Collector firewalls in over eight thousand nodes. I am tasking to capacity."

Prudii saw a new platform rising below them, warning the others, "Buggers! Left flank!" The commando grabbed a frag grenade from his back and tossed it to the Collectors. The blast killed one and injured a second one. Mordin covered Prudii was he used Incinerate against the Scion. Tali distracted the fused husk with her combat drone as she attacked the Collectors.

The injured Collector was taken over by Harbinger as his voice echoed, "Assuming direct control."

Shepard fired bursts at Harbinger's puppet and quickly took down the barrier. Tali tossed a tech mine that overloaded the two Collectors' weapons but the controlled Collector didn't need the weapon to attack. The burning Collector tossed an attack similar to Mordin's Incinerate at Prudii. The attack skimmed the Mandalorian's helmet as he took cover. Prudii grabbed his bowcaster and changed the settings for the quarrels. Prudii used his comm. to coordinate with the others, "I've got them. Kill the husk." As the fiery Collector moved closer, Prudii appeared with his bowcaster fully charged. Quite literally at point blank range, Prudii fired as five energy envelope quarrels fired from the bowcaster simultaneously, cutting though the Collector. The body itself started to disintegrate before Prudii's eyes as the second Collector opened fire at him. He easily dispatched it with several shots from his DC-15s pistol at close range.

The Scion was proving to be more of a challenge then the other. A slightly higher elevation made the husk and its devastating biotic attack more of a threat. But the numbers proved to be adventitious as the Scion could only keep track of one target, forgetting almost completely about the Mandalorian. With the Scion's back turned, Prudii grabbed the Widow and targeted a junction point on its back, a discus shape that was glowing blue. The sniper rifle proved its power once more as the shot finished off the husk, rupturing its sac and collapsing the creature.

Just as the husk fell, EDI chimed in, "Shepard, you must manually reestablish my link to the command console." As EDI requested, Shepard interfaced with the command console again as her hologram appeared before them with some good news, "I have regained control of the platform, Shepard."

Prudii ignored Shepard and EDI as he checked on Tali's envirosuit for ruptures or tears. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine. A bit shocked about the Collectors and the Protheans but I'll be alright."

Returning to the conversation at hand EDI seemed a bit alarmed, "No, it is unusual because turian emergency channels have secondary encryption. It is corrupted in the message. It is not possible that the Illusive Man would believe the distress call was genuine."

Shepard forced himself to ask, "Why are you so sure?"

"I found the anomaly with Cerberus detection protocols. He wrote them."

Joker could hear EDI as well and was also surprised by the news, "He knew it was a trap? Why would he send us into a trap?"

Shepard was steamed as he punched his fist against his other hand, "That son of a bitch sent us right into Collector hands!"

Over the comms Garrus jokingly replied, "And here I thought I'd had my betrayal and attempted murder for this year…"

Tali didn't seem too surprised by this betrayal. "We should have known this would have happened. Cerberus can't be trusted."

Prudii punched the nearby wall as he exclaimed, "I've got a plasma bolt with his name enraged on it ready to greet his _kovid_!"

Miranda was in the cockpit coordinating the team as she tried to defend the Illusive Man's actions, "There has to be some other explanation! The Illusive Man wouldn't do this to us. He…he just wouldn't!"

Prudii argued, "We're inside the heart of enemy territory, no true escape plan, I'd say we've been left for dead."

Before Prudii or Miranda could disagree further, Joker came on, "Uh…Commander. We've got another problem. The Collector ship is powering up." Suddenly the main chamber started to vent the atmosphere above them as Joker shouted, "You need to get out before their weapons come online. I'm not losing another Normandy!"

EDI also warned the away teams, "I do not have full control of their systems. I will do what I can. Sending coordinates for shuttle extraction."

* * *

**A/N: **Like Horizion, I think Shepard should have had back up, or at least a team to defend the LZ(or the shuttle at least). The only reason he has Tali and Mordin was because he was expecting a disabled ship, Shepard wasn't expecting any resistance inside(so Tali examines the tech while Mordin does autopsies on any Collector bodies they might find). About Rang figuring out about the Collectors, I'm not saying he did it as fast as EDI, it took him hours to gather the research notes about the Prothean DNA and he double checked before he believed his theory was right. The genetic talioring thing, you have to remember Kaminoans are perfectionist about their work and I'm sure a few clones(and a few drill sergeants) have tried to find out how the Kaminoans did what they did to the clones for the accelerated growth. Given the fact that the Reapers have huge egos and are arrogant(that's how Sovereign and Harbinger rub off on me) I doubt they ever thought anyone would be able to examine any piece of their techonlogy without becoming an indoctrinated slave or dead. Now about why the Collectors left that experiment of theirs out in the open like that, I think, it was Harbinger's way of say 'Look at what we did to the Protheans, you're next' or something to that extent.

**Mando'a Translation:**

mirshe(MEER-shay)- brain, or brain cells(note that mirsh is brain cell)

sur'haaise(soor-HIE-say)- eyes

uram(OO-rahm)- mouth

kovid(KOV-eed)- head


	46. Full Retreat

**A/N: **Happy New Year everybody(and a belayed Christmas), I'm going to post the new stories soon, two of them actually(either I'm crazy or something else to put out 3 stories but whatever) now to finish the Collector Cruiser, also I'm going to use the names of the various husks(Abomination, Scion and Praetorian).

* * *

With a skeleton crew left to control the ship, the other Mandalorians were grabbing their weapons and armor as they loaded up onto the LAAT. Dagger pulled Vren over, "After seeing what those Collector bastards could do we need every advantage we can get." He pressed a few buttons inside the gunship to open the stern hatch. There was a false pallet above that Dagger lowered to reveal hidden weapons.

Rang spotted some of the weapons and whistled, "Dagger, you are my new favorite clone!"

The small arsenal contained the disassembled sections of an EWHB-12 heavy repeating blaster, a few extra DC-15S blasters and a massive chaingun. Dagger grabbed the chaingun as he introduced it to the krogan, "This here is a Z-6 rotary blaster cannon. She has six barrels on her and can fire at a sustained rate of one hundred and sixty-six full-powered rounds per second."

Rang curiously asked, "Why the small armory flyboys?"

Dagger turned away but before he could reply Swoop answered for him, "After you guys were officially listed KIA, and we lost Vector and Rev, we were using one of the gunships without turrets for a while until this gunship was repaired. We were shot down by flak and crashed. We survived land down but some of the boys we were carrying didn't. We had to survive on our own for the next five hours as droids and Geos attacked us. These weapons were meant for that kind of emergency but this is good enough."

Rang joked, "If you'd got your hands on a Verp sniper, Prudii would never leave."

Vren grabbed the weapons handles as he weighed the weapon in hand as he pressed the trigger to spin the barrels. With a grin, Vren chuckled, "I think this is my new favorite gun."

Kix reported over the comm. "You guys need to see this…" Bev's holo emitter displayed the ship for everyone to look at, the Collector Cruiser, as the Tervho's scanners revealed that the systems were spinning back up. Kix noticed a number of destroyed turian military vessels, _A scout flotilla judging by their numbers_, but Kix couldn't imagine the crews surviving against this monster.

Aran turned to everyone in the hangar, "I don't know what we're going to find in there but we do know our _vod_ is onboard and we aren't leaving until we know he's safe."

"And you're going to need every weapon at your disposal if you wish for everyone to survive this encounter," Lissarkh walked over with most of her armor on, with helmet under arm.

"General!" all of the clones were taken by surprise by her appearance. Aran asked her, "Shouldn't you still be in the medbay?"

Lissarkh hissed, "I will not sit idle while you and your new family risk their lives." Her left arm seemed to have fully regenerated now as she used it normally. She quickly turned to the astromech droid as she openly questioned his strategy, "I hope you have a plan to disrupt the enemy's communication."

Swoop assured the team, "C3 is more than proficient enough to do that and shield a select comm. channel, ain't that right girl?" C3 whistled in assurance that she could.

Beviin radioed to Kix, "Scan the ship's hull. Make sure we aren't parking ourselves anywhere near any defense turrets."

"You don't have to tell me that. Wait…" Kix took a moment to look. There was another ship still in one piece alongside the portside of the Collector vessel. "I've got visual on an unidentified ship. She's not appearing on any of the sensors but she twice the size of a Normandy-class ship." The holo emitter displayed the ship with Cerberus colors and the word 'Normandy' on her.

"It seems Prudii's signal is genuine."

Aran shouted, "Lock and load!" The leader of Sigma Squad stopped to speak with Swoop and Dagger, "We're counting on you guys to get us all in and out live."

Swoop punched Aran's right arm as he past him, "You think we'd ever leave anyone behind, we promise to make sure everyone comes out."

* * *

As the LAAT flew to the alien craft, Kix reported to the pilots, "There's an opening on the starboard end of that ship large enough for yours to get in and blast anything in your way. You two better make sure the others come back safe."

Dagger chuckled slightly over the comm. "Don't worry lizard lips, we've never let Sigma Squad down before we're not going to lose a single member here." The two pilots prepped all weapon systems as Rook and Jak made sure their turrets were working at peak efficiency. The cabin lights were red as the Mandalorians waited for the green light.

One of Aran's ACP was pulled out of its holster as it flew into Lissarkh's open hand. Despite her Jedi training supposedly taking her away from her people and their technology she seemed rather knowledgeable of the weapon's design and handling as the passengers felt the tension build. Inside the opening, a group of Collectors were loading some crates. Two missiles veered past as they exploded against the walls, blasting a number of Collectors out into space. Soon enough the two doors opened as more Collectors appeared opening fire at the gunship.

"Right flank! Right flank!"

"Worry about your side Jak, not mine!"

The blasters and laser fire continued cutting down Collectors and husks but the just kept coming out. "Sorry guys, we're going to have to drop you in hot. We'll hold the LZ until you return." The cabin light turned green as starboard doors opened.

Vren jumped out first and started to use the Z-6, "Get going guys. I'll hold these bastards offs!"

Aran pat a salarian and human on the shoulders, "Sal, Gray, watch Vren's back! Mandalorians, move out!" The green beams continued to cut through the Collectors before they could take cover as Vren, Sal and Gray gun downed any Collectors the gunship crew couldn't kill.

In the next room the C3, Bev, Rasen and Forta started to hack into a few terminals. Bev gave the team a warning, "Alright everyone, we need to turn our comm. channels to the old Sigma line, encryption code Zeta. C3…now…"

* * *

Shepard was finishing off the Harbinger controlled Collector as Prudii killed the Collector to Shepard's left with his new Widow sniper rifle as Mordin and Tali drew the husks away so Shepard and Prudii could flank the group. Just as Prudii and Shepard finished the last of the husks everyone's comm. spiked with a high pitch sound when suddenly a female voice started to speak, "You're listening to the Grand Army of the Republic broadcast, the voice of the Outer Rim. This next one goes out to the Mud-Jumpers of the 433rd, slugging it out on Mimban. Keep your heads down and your seals tight, boys." Then music started to blast through on most of the comm. channels Shepard tried to use.

Prudii picked up on the message as he tuned in. He shouted to the others, "Shepard, tune to channel four-sigma-four-delta-three. Tali, here's the encryption key. Relay it to Garrus and the Normandy."

As soon as they did other voices were already filling it. "Left flank, watch the left!"

"More bugs flying in!"

"Mandalorians! Plow through 'em!"

Prudii reported, "RC-2433 reporting. Why are you guys here?"

Rang's voice shouted over the sounds of gunfire and explosions, "We picked up your emergency signal and got over here as soon as we could."

Prudii turned to Tali as he called him out, "That Bettie-bot shout out to the Mud-Jumpers was rather obvious to GAR personnel, and they're part of the 224, we're 433."

Rang laughed, "Well for once, that wasn't my idea. It was little C3's and I have to say it was rather inventive for the little…"

Tali joined the conversation and asked the other Sigma Squad member, "Where are you guys?"

"We're waiting for C3 to download the ship's layout. Apparently if you dive too deep too fast into their systems, a virus kicks in and overloads the systems searching it, even with this other already deep within their systems. That's what happened to one of Bev's omni-tools unfortunately."

Prudii asked his brother, "Assault or utility model?"

Rang could stop laughing as he replied, "Actually it was the assault one Bev lost. He's really pissed off right now and he's killing some of these Collector bastards with his force pikes. Man you should see this Prudii, Bev and the General fighting together side by side in close-quarters and ranged combat. When you finish playing with your _burc'ya_ I'll show you the playback of it."

Shepard turned to Prudii as he cut this reunion short, "We have to keep moving."

Prudii nodded, "Rang, tell Aran that I'm fine. The beacon accidentally activated. Have the droid find us. If we're close we'll rendezvous, otherwise get yourselves back to the Tervho and out of this system before this ship is fully powered."

Aran come on the comm., "We'll consider it. Good luck brother."

Shepard jumped down the path with the others close behind. The large cavernous area had two openings further out down the hill that narrowed their route. There were two stone support pillars along with a metal plate that seemed to have been forced through the nearby opening.

EDI, using the new comm. channel coordinated with Shepard's team, "I'm opening a door on the far side of the room." As the door opened and Mordin was about to walk down the hill until Prudii stopped the professor as two humanoid forms staggered into the area through the opened door.

Prudii reloaded the Widow and took aim, finding the head of the husk and taking it off with a single round. The second husk ignored his falling partner as it bursted into a full run moaning as it tried to reach them, only for Mordin to turn it to ash with an Incinerate tech. Just as the husk turned to ash a Praetorian hovered out from behind the large metal sheet along with two more Collectors flying behind it. Everyone quickly got to cover as the Praetorian started to attack.

* * *

The area continued to be flooded with husks and Collectors as C3 carefully hacked into the Collector terminal. C3 started to review the data as it started to flow through her circuits. She quickly relayed the new information to Dagger and Swoop to inform the others. "Ah fierfek! Guys we've got a problem!"

"Lay it out for us."

Swoop diverted controls to Dagger as he displayed the ship's layout. "According to these blueprints C3 was able to download, even with all of the open passages big enough for the larty, it'd take at least half an hour for us to reach Prudii's current position and given the power levels that this ship has been building up, C3 estimates we've got about another five minutes at best before this thing starts trying to put holes us."

Aran did not want to leave just yet but they were running out of options. "Mandalorians, fall back to larty. We hold the LZ until Prudii gives us the all clear. You hear that _vod_?"

* * *

Prudii answered as he killed the last Collector, "Alright. I'll signal when we reach the shuttle. Stay safe everyone." With only the Praetorian left, Tali summoned Chiktikka as it danced about the machine while the others concentrated their attack against it. The barrier flickered before it finally broke under the pressure. The team whittled away at the Praetorian's armored body. Before they could harm it further, the Praetorian's body created an impenetrable biotic barrier as it slammed its sword-like appendages into the ground and started to unleash a wave of energy that dissipated Chiktikka.

* * *

The Mandalorians were capturing the majority of the Collectors' attention but Shepard's shuttle was also being visited by a small army of husks. Garrus was able to lead the others against their foes but Grunt continued to fight his battles. The overzealous krogan runt continued to charge into hordes of husks blasting a few to bits with his Claymore shotgun. Just as Grunt was about to ram into an Abomination that was ready to explode, Samara grabbed the young krogan with her biotics and lifted him into the air, allowing Garrus to fire the kill shot. The resulting explosion burned two of the other husk along with it. Samara released Grunt as he pounded the ground, knocking back a few others off their feet.

Thane jumped over a husk as he opened fire on it from behind using the Locust just as Samara covered him, crushing the husk with her boitics. Garrus watched as doors opened again along with a new group of husks ready for combat. Garrus shook his head as he called out to Shepard, "I'd hate to rush anyone, but I'm not sure how much longer we can handle this."

Grunt roared, "Bring them all on! I need more of them to kill!"

Shepard replied, "We're coming as quickly as we can. Just hold on a bit longer."

* * *

The Praetorian was relentless in its assault, as its twin particle beams tore through cover in its attempt to kill Shepard, undeterred by Prudii or the others. But this only made it easier for the others to bring the behemoth down. Just as it floated over Prudii he grabbed for a sonic detonator from his pack and lobbed it to the Praetorian. The grenade detonated on impact, creating a small blast radius as it tore in the Praetorian. That grenade finished the Praetorian, as what remained crashed into the ground while its body slowly disintegrated itself.

Just as Shepard was closing in on the door, the Collectors shut it, blocking their escape route and trapping them within the alcove. Shepard quickly turned to the others as he reported the dilemma, "EDI? We've got a problem here."

The AI quickly responded to answer this unusual obstacle, "A temporary setback on Firewall 3217. Rerouting commands through Firewall 7164." There was a moment of silence before another doorway opened as EDI confirmed, "I have successfully opened a door on the opposite wall. I will keep it open as long as I can."

Shepard's squad rushed through the doors as quickly as possible before the doors slammed shut behind them. Prudii found an opening with a familiar scene below. He whistled as they joined to look, "Down there. That's where we came in!"

Mordin optimistically noted, "Getting close to the end." Tali and Shepard salvaged technology from the Collectors while Prudii checked the area ahead. EDI opened the door to Prudii's right as the path climbed up with a few pods scattered about close by. He could feel the presence of eyes watching him as he slowly entered the next area with the others soon after. His gut feeling was always spot on as Collectors started to fly in from the upper level. The team took cover using the empty pods as the wailing sounds of husks echoed within the camber.

* * *

Kix had enough of doing nothing while the others fought for their lives, slamming his console. "Alright, I'm pulling the seniority crap now. I've pushed this ship to her limits and I want her ready to get us out of here the moment Aran and the others are in the hangar. Yeah, I know our systems are all on standby, but what I want is for navigation to have an FTL jump to a populated and patrolled system."

One of the navigators replied to the pilot's request, "Kix, we're all worried about the crew, but do you really think this ship…" The Tervho received an encrypted message from C3 along with the Collector Cruiser's schematics. The Cruiser's primary weapon, a powerful particle beam housed within the large open cavity they saw from the front along with several smaller anti-fighter turrets along the aft sections of the ship.

The message attached was as follows, 'Prudii will leave with Commander Shepard. We will draw the attention away from Shepard's team in hopes that we can divert the Collectors and clear their path. Please ready all of the Tervho's systems for immediate cast off.' With that the crew started to work promptly to prepare for evasive action and FTL travel.

* * *

Vren and Rook were laying down covering fire for Sal as he dragged Gray into the gunship to patch up his injury from a Collector Particle Beam heavy weapon. "Hold still, otherwise this is going to hurt more than it needs to." Sal disinfected the wound before applying medi-gel directly onto the burned skin.

The addition of the ARC-170's shielding proved invaluable as several shots could have ended the lives of both pilots as they continued to gun down Collectors and husks. But now the shield's integrity was at starting to falter from the constant battling and not being allowed to recover. Just as a Collector was about to break through the LAAT's shield with a Collector Particle Beam the Collector was lifted into the air and throw out into open space while a barrage of weapons fire blazed through the air from behind their cover cutting down Collectors and husks.

The area fell quite for a moment as Mandalorians took positions on both port and starboard sides of the gunship setting up for the next wave. Aran took the time to visit Gray checking up on him, "Are you alright, Gray?"

His pride was injured more than his body, "Damn bastard got off a lucky shot. I'm sorry I screwed up."

Aran patted his good shoulder, "Mistakes happens, as long as you live you can learn from it." As the clone instilled confidence with his crewmember C3 quickly boarded the gunship to protect herself before the fighting started back up again, of which she was certain Araniik wanted.

After about a minute of silence the Mandalorians were starting to feel forgotten. Even C3's sensors weren't picking up movement beyond the doors. Lissarkh could sense the presence controlling the Collectors but it was concentrated near Prudii.

Rang finally said what many of the others were thinking, "Boss man, I think the Collectors don't care about us anymore. Man they are lousy hosts."

Aay'han even agreed, "Sometimes all we can do is let things happen and hope for the best. But I'm willing to wait for the signal."

Rasen joined, "I won't leave until I know everyone will make out alive."

Even Nyona stepped up as she cried out, "Nor I."

"Here, here."

One by one the other Mandalorians all voiced themselves while Lissarkh continued to monitor the two doorways that were still open. "Mandalorians, prepare to reengage!" A moment after Lissarkh shouted that two Scions and a Praetorian through the passages along with more Collectors.

Vren started up the Z-6 again as he yelled with a bit of joy in his voice, "Looks like they finally decided to fight back!" Nyona quickly used a biotic Shockwave against the clustered Collectors to send a few flying against their will while the few with biotic barriers staggered for a moment. Lissarkh tossed her lightsaber at the first Scion as it was sliced in two as Forta attacked the second with a tech attack that temporarily disabled its biotic abilities long enough for others to gun it down. The Praetorian targeted Aay'han just as he took cover behind a small outcropping. Rasen deployed her combat drone behind the Praetorian just as it had to cool down its particle beams. Aay'han, Tare and Jak using the distraction to damage the Praetorian before it slammed into the ground and sent out a small shockwave that knocked back a few Collectors too close to the blast.

* * *

Mordin burned the last Collector leaving a lone Scion between the team and the shuttle. The Scion attacked Prudii, and learning from Nyona, stayed down until the shockwave passed before opening fire against the monstrosity. Shepard now grabbed the deformed husk's attention as it turned its back to Prudii. The commando wasn't going to let this opportunity pass by, quickly grabbing the M-98 and set the bipod on the ledge before activating his cloak to boost the rifle's damage output. Prudii found what seemed to be a power socket or jack on the Scion's back and used that as his marker. With two seconds left before the cloak would dissipate on its own, Prudii took the shot. The Scion's back bursted like a water balloon and cleared the path for the squad.

Joker soon come on the comm. with some inspirational words of encouragement, "Uh, Commander? Hate to rush you, but those weapons are about to come online. Might want to double-time it. You know, so we can leave before they blow the Normandy in half."

The sounds of gunfire echoed up ahead along with the moans of husks. There was a turn in the bank that went down toward the shuttle along with over three dozen husks trying to get there. With little time for finesse, Prudii grabbed a thermal detonator from his pack and tossed it into the mass of husk as he warned the others, "Thermal out!" The round silver grenade flew between husks as it bounced down the hill before finally exploding, vaporizing most of the husks between them and the shuttle.

The team rushed through knocking down any husks blocking their path. Joker shouted as the ship's scanners detected a sudden burst of energy emanating from the Collector Cruiser, "We're out of time, Commander! We have to go!"

Collectors started to appear along with more husks. As the squad made their final kills, Shepard yelled, "You heard the man - everybody onto the Normandy! Move!"

The team ran into the shuttle but Prudii continued to fight back, tossing one of this galaxy's strange disc shaped grenade before jumping into the shuttle and relaying a message, "Sigma Squad, all clear."

* * *

With Prudii's signal, the Mandalorians returned to the gunship's cabin as Aay'han yelled at the pilots, "Get us out of here!"

"Not before we say goodbye to our new friends…" Dagger waited for the chamber to be filled with a few more Collectors before firing off another set of missiles as the LAAT pulled out.

The gunship flew as fast as it could back into the Tervho's hangar as Kix pulled the away. "Hold on tight, this flights going to be a pain." The Tervho and the Normandy pulled away from the Collector Cruiser as it moved to attack position. The Collector ship opened fire targeting both ships with its particle beams just barely missing either vessels. The Tervho preformed a barrel roll away from the beam as the Normandy dived and swerved. The Tervho remained only to ensure the Normandy was able to leave, but the moment they detected the Normandy's FTL systems engage, the Tervho followed suit, jumping out of the system.

* * *

**A/N: **Yes I skiped a few of Shepard's fights just to move things along. If Harbinger really wanted to capture/kill Shepard, all he had to do was send the entire Collector crew against them all at once or placing a large number of Scions or Praetorians at key choke points, but that would be thinking logically, ha ha ha. Now that's done, time for a few loyalty mission before finishing this story… at least until ME3 comes out(and I play through it about 12 time)

**Mando'a Translation:**

burc'ya(BOOR-sha)- friend (also used ironically)


	47. Family Troubles

**A/N: **To commemorate me going super busy with three long stories, I'm giving you guys two chapters here and all of what I've done thus far for the others.

* * *

The Illusive Man made the first contact as he confessed to Shepard of the fact he knew the turian signal was a trap. He also conveyed that EDI had confirmed that the mass relays respond to a special IFF that Reapers and the Collector Cruiser use along with the coordinates to a 'derelict Reaper' supposedly disabled nearly thirty-seven million years ago. The Illusive Man also wanted Shepard to inform the team that he did not risk their lives 'unnecessarily', news of which Jack was rather unconvinced of given what Cerberus has done to her. Jack promptly stormed out of the just as Grunt left in an attempt to quiet the noise in his head. Zaeed left the room, already committed to the job and simply waited for the major assault against the Collectors.

Jacob didn't take too well to the news either, "So the Illusive Man didn't sell us out. Could've fooled me."

Mordin continued to pace about as he processed his personal feelings about the matter, "Lied to us. Used us. Needed access to the Collector data banks. Necessary risk."

Prudii wasn't so forgiving, "The Illusive Man has signed his death warrant. We ever meet face to face, his head is mine."

Rang, over Prudii's suit's comm., added, "As long as you remember I get his brain there'll be no trouble." Even though the Tervho was in a different system from the Normandy, Prudii was acting as a temporary liaison for the Mandalorians, including displaying visuals through Beviin's holo emitter.

Shepard turned to the holographic display on the table that represented EDI, "EDI, are you sure this IFF is going to work?"

EDI confidently replied, "My analysis is accurate, Shepard. I have also determined the approximate location of the Collector homeworld based on navigational data from their vessel."

A display of the galaxy appeared as a tracker began to move to the coordinates, stopping at the galactic core. The crew all moved to get a better look. Miranda spoke out loud what many of the others were thinking, "That can't be right."

Shepard was willing to accept EDI's word after everything she had done to keep the away team alive, "EDI doesn't make mistakes. The Collector homeworld is located somewhere in the galactic core."

Jacob still could believe it possible, "Can't be. The core is just black holes and exploding suns. There are no habitable planets there."

Professor Pyth couldn't help but correct that statement, "Excuse me sir, but I may not be entirely familiar with the species or planetary demographics of this galaxy, I do know for a fact that our home galaxy has a small collection of inhabited and colonized planets located within the Deep Core surrounding a massive black hole at the true center. The most famous of these for us scientists is Byss and their naturally evolved people, the Abyssins. As a Jedi might say, 'Nothing is beyond the realm of possibilities', or something to that effect."

Mordin then hypothesized a more reasonable idea, "Could be an artificial construction. Space station protected by powerful mass effect fields and radiation shields."

Miranda wasn't so willing to commit the theory just yet, "Even the Collectors don't have that kind of technology."

Shepard reminded Miranda of their real enemy, "The Collectors are just servants of our real enemy. And we've all seen what their masters are capable of. They built the mass relays and the Citadel. Who's to say they can't build a space station surrounded by black holes? No wonder nobody's ever returned from a trip through the Omega 4 mass relay."

"The logical conclusion is that a small safe zone exists on the far side of the relay. A region where ships can survive. Standard relay transit protocols would not allow safe transport. Drift of several thousand kilometers is common, and would be fatal in the galactic core. The Reaper IFF must trigger the relay to use more advanced, encrypted protocols," EDI concluded.

Shepard wasn't willing to jump the gun and go gung-ho. "Just because we can follow the Collectors through the relay doesn't mean we can take them out. I don't want to go after them until I know we're ready."

Jacob didn't agree with that, "Sooner or later we need that IFF. I say, why wait?"

Miranda reminded Jacob of the possible dangers if they are unprepared, "It's a derelict Reaper. What if the Collectors are waiting for us? We may want to build up our team before we take that kind of risk."

Garrus also had some doubts about going to the Reaper just yet, "I'm with you whatever you decided, but I think visiting a Reaper after everything that just happened with the Collectors isn't exactly what we need to do right now. Just saying as a friend."

Samara also added her view of the matter, "We know our enemy, and we know where they hide. Now it is simply a matter of being able to reach their base of operation and putting an end to this."

Shepard decided, "We aren't ready just yet. We still need to prepare before we attempt to go after the Reaper IFF."

Araniik told Shepard, "If Prudii plans to follow you through the Omega 4 Relay, you can count on support from the Mandalorians. One for all and all for the clan. We may have joined you late in your fight against Sovereign, but I'm willing to help end the fight."

Shepard turned to Prudii to respond, "Thank you, Araniik. Good luck out there."

Aran replied, "May the Force be with you," ending the exchange and connection to Prudii's suit.

* * *

Prudii had sent the others information that EDI was able to uncover about the Collectors and the genetic augmentation done to them. Rang could only joke further about this genetic botchery and a Kaminoan's reaction to such 'sloppy' alterations.

Dagger let Vren keep the Z-6 blaster cannon, seeing the weapon was in capable hands. Vren was now modifying the weapon for a faster rotation speed and rate of fire. C3 was asked to help boost the larty's shield strength along with repairing the damage she received while in the Collector Cruiser. The others seemed more willing now to accept the astromech after the event of Horizon and the Collector Cruiser, seeing the valiant and daring efforts from the droid on both occasions. Even Rasen was starting to accept the AI that was willing to die for them.

Aay'han however seemed to be troubled, something Aran was able to pick up on. The two clones met privately to discuss it, "Aay'han you're troubled about something. Come on, let it out."

Aay'han was rather reserve able telling him anything, trying to divert the topic, "Hey remember that infiltration mission where Rang wanted to blow your cover and destroy that column of droids?"

Aran never liked dancing around the bush, "Advisor…"

"_Ni dinu,_ remember that assault from the Mandalorians lead by a defector named Spar?" He waited for Aran to confirm, "Not long after you guys went missing a group calling itself _Mando Cabure _overthrew Duchess Satine turning _Manda'yaim _from a neutral world and joined the Separatists. A lot of the infantry don't like guys like you and me for connecting to our Mandalorian roots because of things like that and their open declaration of war against the Republic. Hell I had a few operations involving the guys in the 2nd Airborne Company and I had that feeling every one of them would have shot me in the back if I spoke a word of _Mando'a_."

Aran looked at Aay'han's face and saw that there was more he was trying to hide from him. He grabbed Aay'han by the shoulder as he told him, "Advisor, we've been training together since Kamino. As far as I'm concerned your as much of a member of Sigma Squad as Rang, Beviin, Prudii or myself. Just tell me what's wrong."

Aay'han finally broke down and told him, "You heard of General Pong Krell. He's lead a lot of good men to die, but it wasn't until Umbara that the truth was revealed. General Skywalker was recalled from duty and Krell replaced him. From Rex's reports Krell completely ignored his advice and a number of common tactical maneuvers, sending many troopers to a needlessly end. A few of their troopers did a daring move, using Umbaran fighters to destroy a Separatist supply ship from the inside. After they returned to the captured airbase, Rex and a number of troopers treated them like heroes, Krell treated them like traitors and ordered their execution."

Aran was shocked, "How could he do that? They saved lives and help bring about a swifter end of the Umbaran threat."

Aay'han wasn't finished, "Well Krell did something far worse than that."

Aran was disgusted, "What could be worse than making good men execute other good men who have only been loyal to the Republic?"

"The only good thing I can say from all of this was that Fives and Jesse were spared. Krell sent Rex and a detachment of the 501st to intercept a group of Umbarans that were reported to have captured a shipment of our armor and weapons." Aay'han had to take a deep breath before he could continue any further, "He set them up, and had a platoon from the 212 believe they were Umbarans in disguised." Aay'han could see Aran's disgust but he could see Aay'han wasn't finished yet. "Rex was able to stop the fighting, but they lost some good men, Waxer among them."

Aran stopped Aay'han, "Wasn't Waxer one of the men who found that Twi'lek girl when we moved to retake Ryloth?"

"Yeah, he was. Rex led the remaining troopers to capture Krell. As you can imagine fighting a Jedi killed a lot of them. But in the end the true traitor was captured. Krell had planned to defect to the Umbarans and with all of the codes and tactical data he had, the Republic would have been finished."

Aran was furious after hearing the tale, but he wasn't sure what the point was, "So why'd you tell me this?"

Aay'han looked down to his feet, "I guess…our war was going to some dark places. It's all just crap. I don't know. The war has just gotten so complicated, I couldn't tell if we were still the good guys or if we had become the bad guys."

Aran was still angry after hearing the news about such things occurring to clones but remembering everything he's done and the crew he had acquired, Aran was able to calm himself. "Aay'han, we have a family here. I know you've left behind a lot of good men, but if you'd ever consider it, I'd like for you and the other to just stay with us."

Aay'han finally smiled when he heard that, "I'll think about that offer. I guess I just needed to talk to someone about it who didn't already know. I just hope Prudii's doing as well as we are."

Aran smacked Aay'han's shoulder, "It's Prudii your talking about. I think anyone who fights him should worry."

* * *

Thane was able to get Prudii and Shepard to speak with them privately. "Is there something wrong?"

Thane paused as the door to his room closed, "Yes. Now that you're both here, though—It seems more difficult to talk about."

Shepard tried to ease Thane's trouble, "I've got time. Take it at your own pace."

Thane bowed to Shepard, "Thank you. I fear I've already done that for too long." Thane walked to the rack where he kept the weapons he used, "I had a family, once. I still have a son. His name is Kolyat. I haven't seen him for a very long time."

Prudii was surprised, "Having a family in your line of work is very dangerous."

Thane looked down, "I know. But have you never found a woman who had captivated you. Made you feel…alive." Prudii fell silent as he kept his feelings hidden.

After that small exchange Shepard was able to ask Thane, "Did something happen to them?"

Thane bluntly responded, "I abandoned them. Oh, not all at once. Nothing dramatic. No sneaking out in the middle of the night. No final argument or slammed door. I just…did my job. I hunted and killed across the galaxy. 'Away on business,' my wife would tell people. I was always away on business."

Prudii asked the assassin, "How long since you last saw him?"

Thane vividly recalled, "Ten years. He showed me some of his schoolwork and asked if we could dance crazy. We did that when he was younger."

Shepard asked him, "What sort of dance is that?"

"It's…" Thane suddenly started to relive the memory, "I check my extranet contacts. I expect an update on my next target. The console plays music. Old. Unfashionable. Kolyat jumps into the room. 'Hi, father!' Runs around in circles. I scoop him up. Toss him into the air. He shrieks, laughs. 'Spin me!' The console beeps. I put him down. Click the message. 'Father,' he pleads. Tugs my sleeve. 'I need to read this.' I say. I don't look at him."

Shepard has spoken with Thane on a few occasions and did not recall him speak about a family, "You never mentioned this before. Why now?"

"When my wife departed from her body, I—attended to that issue. I left Kolyat in the care of his aunts and uncles. I have not seen him or talked to him since."

Prudii was able to read in-between Thane's words, "I'm glad for you that you were able to fulfill your _skira_, but your first duty, as a father and husband, was your son."

Thane argued he would not have been adequate, "My body is blessed with the skills to take life. The hanar honed them in me. I have few others. I didn't want that life for Kolyat. I hoped he would find his own way. If he hated me, so be it. He would not have shared the path of sin."

Prudii corrected the misinterpretation, "_Gar taldin ni jaonyc; gar sa buir, ori'wadaas'la._ He's your son. He didn't have to follow your path, but he needed your guidance."

Thane lowered his head, knowing that Prudii's words were true. "I used my contacts to trace Kolyat. He has become—disconnected. He does what his body wills."

Shepard and Prudii weren't sure what he meant. Shepard was the one to as, "You'll have to explain that one to us."

"Disconnected." Thane had to go into a spiritual view, "The body is not our true self. The soul is. Body and soul work as one in a Whole Person. When the soul is weakened by despair or fear—when the body is ill or injured, the individual is disconnected. No longer Whole."

"What's wrong with him? Is he hurt?"

"Something happened that should not have. He knows where I've been what I've done. I don't know his reasons, but he has gone to the Citadel. He has taken a job as a hit man. I would like your help to stop him. He is—This is not a path he should walk."

Prudii didn't like this, "He's untrained, undisciplined, and doesn't know how to make a clean kill quietly without alerting the masses."

Thane had a good idea as to why he was hired, "I'm afraid someone may have seen we share a name and assumed we share skills. I don't know why he would accept the task."

Shepard suggested it may have been the other way around. "Maybe he name-dropped you to get hired."

"It's possible. But I don't think so. It doesn't seem right. My name—he should not respect it."

Shepard had another suggestion, "To be closer to you, maybe?"

Thane shuddered at the idea, "That thought haunts me more than any other."

Shepard asked Thane about the location, "What made him go to the Citadel?"

"Years ago, I prepared a package for him. A relic of my ill-spent life. I had volus bankers store it and arranged for delivery when I died. He acquired it early. I don't really know how. I did wet work on the Citadel around the time his mother died. That may be why he went there."

Prudii had an idea as to why, "Maybe word spread that you were going after Nassana. The volus might have thought you were as good as dead so he handed the parcel before you even infiltrated the Tower."

Shepard finally confessed his doubts, "Thane, I don't have your contacts, and I don't have your tracking skills. Why do you need my help for this? Wouldn't you only need Prudii's help?"

"I don't need your help. I want it. And as for Prudii, he is only my back up plan, no offense."

Prudii nodded, "None taken. Even the best sniper sometimes needs a second."

"The last time I saw my son," Thane began reliving another memory, as he described it, "They've wrapped her body in sea-vines. Weighted it with stones. He tries to pull from me. Calls for her. The hanar lift her off the platform. They sing like bells. 'The Fire has gone, to be kindled anew.' He begs them not to take her away. They let her body slide into the water. He hits me. 'Don't let them! Stop them! Why weren't you—?' It rains. It always rains on Kahje. Warm water pours down his face."

Shepard turned away after seeing the pain Thane must have relived, "I didn't mean to make you relive that."

Thane admitted, "Perfect memory. It is sometimes a burden."

Shepard agreed to help, "I'll get us to the Citadel as soon as possible."

Prudii also agreed, "Alright. From one professional to another."

Thane bowed, "Thank you, Shepard and Prudii. I'll be meditating until you need me."

* * *

**A/N: **Yes I skiped a few of Shepard's fights just to move things along. If Harbinger really wanted to capture/kill Shepard, all he had to do was send the entire Collector crew against them all at once or placing a large number of Scions or Praetorians at key choke points, but that would be thinking logically, ha ha ha. Now that's done, time for a few loyalty mission before finishing this story… at least until ME3 comes out(and I play through it about 12 time)

**Mando'a Translation:**

Ni dinu(NEE DEE-noo)- I give/alright

Mando Cabure(MAHN-do KAH-booray)- Mandalorian Protectors

Manda'yaim(MAN-dah-YAI-eem)- the planet Mandalore

skira(SKEE-rah)- settling scores, revenge, feud (different to vengeance - more personal)

Gar taldin ni jaonyc; gar sa buir, ori'wadaas'la.(Gar Tal-DEEN nee jah-OHn-eesh, gar sa BOO-eer OH-ree-wah-DAHS-la.)- "Nobody cares who your father was, only the father you'll be." (Lit: Bloodline is not important, but you as a father are the most valuable thing.) Mando saying emphasising the importance of a father's role, and that a man is judged more by that than his lineage.


	48. Missed Opportunities

**A/N: **Part 2 of this special update.

* * *

Things started to settle down again as the crew returned to routine life on the Tervho. Gray was letting out his frustration of being injured against a few of the punching bags. Prath was checking a few of the job offers they received while Rang continued his examination of the Collectors, husks and the seeker swarm. Prath was trying to find a simple and easy job in hopes that it could help the team forget about what happened with the Collectors. "Araniik, I've got a _ver'gebuir_ detail from a politician on the Citadel."

After their first few jobs for politicians like Nassana, Aran never accepted until he knew more, "Give me a name and his platform."

Prath has already heard of this politician, "His name is Joram Talid. A turian running for Intendant of Zakera Ward. The campaign is that he will eradicate organized crime on Zakera but he's very anti-human. Talid attributes the increasing crime rate to corrupt human C-Sec officers and humans turning a blind eye to crimes committed by other humans. It seems a criminal from Zakera has hired an assassin and Talid has requested we send a team of our best non-humans to compliment the Blood Pack guards he already has."

Aran didn't want to do this job but he thought there was more to Talid then his campaign says he's fighting against. "Advisor, think you can deal with this guy?"

Aay'han shrugged, "I don't know. I might want to shoot him in the leg myself if he's the ass I think he is."

Aran smiled, "We'll ask the General to join you. Bev. Kix. Get us to the Citadel. We've got a few errands to run on the station anyway."

* * *

Forta, Jak and Sal were shopping for some replacement gear and weapons as Rasen, accompanied by Dagger, Swoop and C3, were looking for ship upgrades for both the Tervho and the gunship. Aay'han and Lissarkh had arrived to the rendezvous for Talid but there were only fully armored Blood Pack members waiting for them. The air was tense as the group of krogans was ready for a tussle that was until a turian in a clean suit walked in. He examined both Mandalorians and was unimpressed, "I asked for non-humans. You both look like humans."

Lissarkh threw back the hood of her cloak covering her helmet and removed the armor to reveal her face, hissing, "Iss thisss not human enough for you?"

Talid seemed fine with it, "Alright, you both will be acting as my personal bodyguards until I win the election. And you won't get paid until then, got me?"

Lissarkh hissed in anger toward Talid as she placed her helmet and hood back on again, "Of course."

One of the krogan joined Talid as he told them, "We have a campaign to run here gentlemen. Let's not keep the voters waiting any longer."

* * *

Shepard, Thane and Prudii left the Normandy to Zakera Ward in search of Thane's son. EDI advised checking with the local C-Sec office to help speed up their search. The Captain Bailey pointed the team to a duct rat named Mouse. They found the duct rat was in the middle of a trade, "Yeah. Sure. I can get you two cases by the end of the day."

Shepard called him out, "You Mouse?"

"What do you," turning around he spots a familiar face or two, "oh, shit! Krios? I thought you retired! Commander Shepard? I thought you died! A Mandalorian, I haven't done anything worth a bounty for you to hunt! What do you want with me?"

Thane grabbed Mouse's shoulder, "Be still, Mouse. You can change your pants in a moment."

Shepard noticed Thane seemed rather acquainted with Mouse, "How do you know Thane?"

"Krios? He didn't-?" Mouse attempted to use this moment to act tough, "Uh. If he didn't say nothing, I ain't either."

Thane then explained, "When we heard the name, I didn't think it could be the same Mouse. He was a contact on the Citadel when I was active. He and some other children would gather information on my targets."

Shepard was surprised at Thane, "You put children in danger to spy for you?"

Thane added to the list, "Children. The poor. My people's word for their kind is 'drala'fa': the ignored. They're everywhere, see everything. Yet they are never seen."

Prudii commented, "The eyes that are everywhere yet nowhere at the same time."

Thane gabbed Mouse's collar trying to get information from him, "You gave another drell instructions for an assassination. Who's the target?"

"I…I don't know. I didn't ask. 'Cause the people I work for? They can make me disappear. I'd like to help you, Krios. You always done right by us. But I ain't gonna die for you."

Shepard tried to persuade Mouse into cooperating, "Look. You know Thane. He wouldn't ask if it wasn't important. Do it for him."

Shepard used the guilt trip and it seemed to work, "I want to. He was always nice to us. But these people ain't nice, Krios."

Shepard assured Mouse, "Nobody's going to know you talked to us."

Thane promised him, "Mouse, I swear that you won't be named."

Mouse finally caved in, "All right…all right. He came with that holo you took of me. Said he wanted a job. I ran through your old contacts to see who might give him a shot. The guy who offered was Elias Kelham."

Prudii wasn't familiar with the name, "Tell us about Kelham."

"Human. Moved to the Citadel about ten years ago. He was little people when you were here, Krios. He got big after the geth attack. Lots of the big guys from before got cacked. All in them big fancy apartments up on the Presidium. Now he runs the rackets on the lower end of the Ward. Shin Akiba. He's seriously bad news."

Shepard talked about something Bailey mentioned, "One other thing. That Shepard VI you're selling?"

Mouse though he was in trouble now trying to defend himself, "Oh, shit. You heard—Look, you were dead! It was totally legal to make a VI of you."

Shepard simply asked, "Give me a copy, we'll call it even."

Mouse was expecting a threat or credit shifting, "What? I mean, sure. Yeah, absolutely! Sorry about the whole…Just so you know, there's three volus who are patching it all the time."

Shepard pat him on the back, "You did good, Mouse."

Mouse knew but it wasn't good for him, "Yeah. Hope I live long enough to pat myself on the back."

Thane promised, "Kelham will never know."

"I hope not. I'm out of here, Krios. Next time you're in town—Just don't bring the family," and Mouse disappeared into the crowd.

Prudii watched Mouse leave and could only tell Thane, "That could have been better."

Thane felt bad as Mouse left. "Mouse knew more about my life than Kolyat ever did." Thane began reliving another memory as his eyes began to rapidly move, "He smiles up at me, broken teeth and scabby knees. Bare feet black. A dead-end future looking up at me. Worshipping the petty gifts I offer." Thane pulled himself out of the memory as he noted, "I was the only good thing he had, back then. But I left him, as I left Kolyat."

Shepard asked Thane about something Mouse said, "Mouse said you had a holo of him?"

Prudii could only see it as a danger, "Emotions like that could have gotten him killed."

Thane completely agreed, "Yes. A foolish bit of sentimentality. I can perfectly recall every moment I spent with Mouse." Thane relived another memory, "He pulls at my arm. Smiles. He wants to know that I'll remember him. That anyone will remember him. I take the holo. He smiles at himself in miniature on my palm. Then a frown crinkles his brow. He pats my pockets, checking for other holos. 'Where's your son, Krios?' he asks."

Shepard tried to help bring peace to Thane, "Don't blame yourself."

Prudii disagreed with Shepard, "If Krios was a better father, none of this would be necessary."

Another point Thane agreed with the Mandalorian, "We must carry the weight of our decisions, Shepard. You, of all people, know this."

"Let's head back to Bailey."

* * *

Shepard walked up to Bailey as he asked, "Can we talk about my associate's son?"

"You talk to Mouse? Did you get the name of the guy he's working with?"

Prudii replied, "Elias Kelham."

Bailey was aware with the name, "Kelham? Shit. Ah, look. This is awkward. Kelham and I have a—an agreement. He doesn't cause too much trouble, and 'buys tickets to the C-Sec Charity Ball' from me. In return, I ignore him."

Shepard may have run with gangs but that doesn't mean he supports any bribery, "He pays you off. You were eager to help us before. What about now? Is it too 'incontinent'?"

Bailey wasn't going to back down now, "I said I'd help. It's just—There'll be repercussions if I don't handle it right. He and I…give each other space. It keeps the peace. I'll get some of my people to bring him in and set him up in a private room. You can interrogate him yourself. I'll stay out of sight. If I'm lucky, Kelham will believe that I had nothing to do with it."

Prudii could understand slightly, "Crime happens weather we want it to or not. Here there's something of a balance."

Shepard was ready, "Bring him in. We might not have much time."

Bailey got up, "I'll make it happen. Wait here."

* * *

Shepard reported to a C-Sec agent as two others dragged an unconscious Kelham to interrogation, "We've got Kelham. Tell Bailey we're ready."

Bailey found Shepard as he commented, "He'll expect me to get him out of this."

Thane politely noted, "Not today, I think."

A man approached the C-Sec area but was blocked by a turian and a woman. The turian, Sergeant Haron, reported this new development, "Captain? His lawyer's here. Bet Elias has his VI set to page him if C-Sec gets within ten meters."

"I'll stall him. Get in there. And work fast." Bailey left to help Haron hold the lawyer back.

Thane then turned to Prudii and Shepard as he asked the two, "We should question him together. Keep the pressure on. Thoughts on how we approach it?"

Prudii cracked his knuckles, "Leave that to me. I'll have that mynock squealing."

Thane was willing to let Prudii at him, "But if we waste too much time negotiating, Bailey won't be able to stall Kelham's advocate."

* * *

Inside the interrogation room, Kelham had awoken and was strapped into a chair yelling, "Get me out of these restraints, Bailey. Pretty funny, bringing me down here like this—" Just then the doors opened with two figures ready to enter. "Who the hell are you two?"

The two men stepped aside as a man covered in black armor from head to toe and armed to the teeth. "Prudii Tervho. Mandalorian."

Kelham wasn't convinced, "Prove it."

Prudii extended two blades from his gauntlets as he crossed them around Kelham's head from behind placing the vibrating blades just above his Adam's Apple, "I've got five contracts that want me to put you out of business permanently. Three of them dead, one wants your head on a pike. I haven't accepted any…yet. And a Mandalorian always complete a contract once he accepts. Clear?"

Kelham was trying to keep his head away from the blades but Prudii continued to move closer ever so slightly. Kelham finally agreed, "Crystal."

Prudii retracted one of the blades, "Good. You contracted an assassin. Who's the target?"

Kelham willingly complied, "Joram Talid. A turian. He's running for office. He lives in the 800 blocks."

Prudii retracted the other blade and told Kelham, "You served your use. Pray I don't decide to take those contracts against you, because I can find you whenever I want."

As the trio left, Thane could help but complement Prudii's abilities, "That may go down in history as the shortest interrogation ever."

"No, a Jedi mind probing is."

* * *

Outside, Bailey waved them over. "What's the story? Why did Kelham hire the boy?"

Prudii answered him, "Assassination. Turian; Joram Talid. You know him?"

Bailey was surprised, "Joram? Yeah. You might have seen his posters around. He's promising to end organized crime on the ward. Thing is, his message is all mixed up in race politics. He's anti-human."

Shepard was disgusted, "Are things so bad that people can openly campaign as anti-human?"

All Bailey had to do was look out the C-Sec window to prove his point, "Before the Battle of the Citadel, the alien population thought we were violent upstarts. Look what's happened since then. A human fleet guarding the station for months. C-Sec filled with humans. Anderson does what he can, but some people have lived on the station since before humans had starships. They see it as a coup."

Shepard didn't like these policies Talid may try to implement but Thane's son also needed saving, "We need to stop this assassination. Can you get us to the 800 blocks?"

Bailey shouted to a nearby agent, "Sergeant! Get a patrol car. These three need to get to the 800 blocks."

The woman responded with a saluted, "Yes sir!" and quickly ran off to get the car.

* * *

A few meters away they spotted Talid speaking with a voter, "There he is. How do you want to play this?"

Thane pointed up for Shepard, "Follow Talid on the maintenance catwalks. Tell me what he's doing. The krogan bodyguard will make him easy to follow."

Shepard asked Thane, "Where will you two be?"

Thane modestly answered, "The darkest corner with the best view." Shepard left to reach the catwalk as Prudii entered the shadows. Thane paused a moment to pray to one of his gods, "Amonkira. Lord of Hunters. Grant that my hands be steady, my aim be true, and my feet swift. And should the worst come to pass, grant me forgiveness." As the crowds continued to move Thane disappeared among the masses.

* * *

Joram Talid was working the crowd as Lissarkh and Aay'han were told to maintain a good distance while he toured the voters, "It's been wonderful talking with you all. I hope you'll come out on election day." Talid stopped to speak with another group of voters before continuing on.

Eventually Talid stopped at a shop while the Blood Pack walked in. The krogan was extorting the merchant for Talid so he could deny involvement. "Disgusting."

Lissarkh had seen this all too often on Coruscant, "This is the side of politics not many see."

Aay'han moved to Talid and confronted him about it, "Talid, we need to talk."

* * *

Shepard watched from the catwalk as the krogan extorted the teller. "Wait…who's that."

"What's happening?"

Shepard updated Prudii and Thane, "An armored individual and a cloaked figure are talking to Talid. It doesn't seem like they like what the krogan's doing."

Prudii moved to position to try and see for himself. "Advisor? General? Why are they here?"

Shepard asked Prudii, "Are you sure you don't have any idea."

Prudii had a thought, "Talid might have asked for extra protection detail if he knows he's being targeted. If the Advisor and the General are here then we have to find Kolyat before they kill him."

* * *

Talid pushed Aay'han's chest, "I'm paying you to protect me. You shouldn't worry about what I have my other bodyguards do." Aay'han wanted to smack Talid but he tempered his fist. Lissarkh stared Talid down and he eventually back down. "I'll let this one slide, but you just keep watching my back."

The krogan walked out of the store and started to run as Talid ran as well. In the bar the krogan started to shakedown the owner. As the krogan did, Aay'han couldn't help but notice, "General."

Lissarkh kept their conversation between themselves, "Yes, I've noticed around the time when Talid was speaking to the turian and salarian. I sense four individuals tracking us, one of which we are rather familiar with…"

Talid continued into the bar where they found more Blood Pack hired by Talid. "What's wrong, Talid?"

"I got that weird feeling. Like somebody's watching me."

One of the krogan couldn't see what the difference, "You're running for office. Lots of people watch you. Maybe you're just paranoid."

Talid poked the krogan, "Maybe you'd better do the damn job I pay you for!"

"Yes, sir." With that Talid and one of the krogans walked off with Aay'han and Lissarkh close behind.

* * *

Walking to Talid's apartment, Lissarkh sensed an individual with malcontent on mind. "Commander…"

"I'm ready…"

A voice shouted from the raftings, "Kolyat!"

A green scaled humanoid with very human feature had a pistol in hand behind the group. Lissarkh pulled out her lightsaber as she prepared to attack the assassin. The alien opened fire and Lissarkh blocked the shot that would have hit Talid but not the shot that killed the krogan.

Aay'han grabbed his WESTAR-M5 ready to kill the assassin until another voice shouted out, "Advisor! Don't!" Lissarkh jumped back as she deactivated her weapon and pulled Aay'han out of the way allowing the assassin to pursue Talid. "_Buir bal ade tionas_."

Prudii and two others ran toward Talid's apartment. Prudii explained the situation in detail to Aay'han and Lissarkh before anything else transpired.

* * *

Inside Talid's apartment, Talid was on his knees as Kolyat placed a pistol to the back of his head. Aay'han had his WESTAR aimed at Kolyat's heart along with Shepard with a Phalanx at hand.

Thane confronted his son, "Kolyat."

"This—This is a joke. Now? Now you show up?"

Talid pleaded for his life, "Help me, drell. I'll do whatever you want."

C-Sec arrived as patrol cars surrounded the apartment while Captain Bailey and Haron joined Shepard. "C-Sec. Put the gun down, son."

Kolyat started to make demands, "Get out of my way. I'm walking out. He's coming with me."

Thane tried to talk Kolyat out of it, "They'll have snipers outside."

Aay'han asked, "You ready brother?"

Kolyat yelled, "Who are you talking to?"

Aay'han nodded, "The man about to save your life." He fired at the lamp behind Kolyat's head, startling the would-be assassin.

"What the hell!" Out of the blue a shimmer appeared before black armor jumped Kolyat, knocking him to the ground and pinning him. Lissarkh reached out as the pistol in Kolyat's hand fought against his grip until it flew through the air and into her hand.

Lissarkh hissed at the politician, "Talid, get out now. And remember, it was humans that just saved your life."

Talid limped out of the apartment as he replied, "Yeah. Yeah! I will."

Bailey turned to Haron, "Take the boy into custody." Lissarkh stopped Haron from moving any closer to Kolyat.

Prudii got off Kolyat and allowed him to get up as he yelled, "You sons of bitches!"

Shepard explained their actions, "Your father doesn't have much time left, Kolyat. He's trying to make up for his mistakes."

Kolyat wasn't amused, "What, so you came to get my forgiveness? So you can die in peace or something?"

Thane did not come for anything like that. "I came to grant you peace." He had to pause for a moment to confront his son, "You're angry because I wasn't there when your mother died."

"You weren't there when she was alive. Why should you be there when she died?"

Guilt and anger built up inside Thane but he let is subside, "Your mother—They killed her to get to me. It was my fault."

"What?"

Thane continued, "After her body was given to the deep, I went to find them. The trigger men. The ringleaders. I hurt them. Eventually killed them. When I went back to see you, you were—older. I should have stayed with you."

Kolyat still didn't see how this helps him now, "I guess it's too bad for me you waited so long, huh?"

Thane confessed something he needed to tell his son, both for Kolyat's sake as well as his own, "Kolyat. I've taken many bad things out of the world. You're the only good thing I ever added to it." Kolyat couldn't help but cry now he knew how his father felt about him.

Bailey wasn't going to let Thane and Kolyat continue in public, "This isn't a conversation you should have in front of strangers. Boys, take Kolyat and his father back to the precinct. Given them a room and as much time as they need."

Shepard thanked the captain, "You're doing him a favor, Bailey. Thanks."

Bailey wasn't use to such complements, "Yeah, well, send me a Christmas card or something. I have to get back to the precinct. Come on. I'll give you a lift."

* * *

**A/N: **Yes I went out of order of loyalty missions, only so I could do Garrus' mission and have a special interaction between Tali and Prudii. Soon Prudii will learn about Lissarkh and her Trandoshan connections, will we have to worry about sparks, well let's hope my head doesn't explode from jumbling around all of this information.

**Mando'a Translation:**

ver'gebuir(vair-geh-boo-EER)- bodyguard lit: hired guardian (almost-father)

Buir bal ade tionas(boo-EER bahl AH-day tee-OH-nahs)- Father and son trouble.


	49. Fade and Deceit

**A/N: **Time to finish Thane's mission and start Garrus'. This should be fun.

* * *

At the precinct, Lissarkh removed her helmet and told Prudii everything. "With everything before you commando, what will you do now?"

Aay'han was expecting Prudii to fight their Jedi General, but instead Prudii was still calm. Prudii replied, "You both look ready for me to attack. You've taken care of us and allowed us to deal with problems our way. You've covered for us to save our brothers in danger or were missing. You've also taught us that we can't judge a species by its individuals. The thugs that gave me my scars are all dead. The Trandos that captured the _Prosecutor_ are all dead. You're a Jedi first, our General, you being a Trandoshan doesn't change anything."

Lissarkh bowed to Prudii in respect, "I am most fortunate to have been able to work with such a level-headed individual as yourself. It has been an honor to be your leader and I do hope you return to your brothers safely and soon."

* * *

Thane walked out of the room alone as he rejoined Shepard. Shepard asked Thane, "How'd it go?"

"Our problems—they aren't something I can fix with a few words. We'll keep talking, see what happens."

Bailey reminded them of the situation Kolyat was in, "Your boy shot some people. No one I feel sympathy for, but there it is."

Aay'han walked up to Bailey, "I watched those guys shaking down businesses and threatening humans. There scum."

Bailey wasn't expecting him to say such, "You were hired to protect Talid, right? Why would you speak up against them?"

Aay'han sneered, "I don't like Talid. But we fulfilled out end of the deal and protected him. He's paid us and we have no allegiance to him. The kid hasn't done anything wrong as far as I can see."

Bailey couldn't do it, even if he wanted to, "But he can't just get away with it."

"The kid wants to make a difference. Give him community service," Shepard was hoping Bailey would be willing to give the Krios another favor.

Bailey scoffed, "Community service for attempted murder? What jury would agree to that?"

Shepard clarified, "None that I've seen. This would need to stay out of the judiciary. Strictly within C-Sec."

Bailey got out of his seat as he debated the thought, "Interesting. I'll think about it."

Thane shook the captain's hand as he said, "Thank you, Captain."

Lissarkh assured Thane, "His heart is still a pure one, yet to be tainted by the darkness of the galaxy. I'm sure the captain will be able to help your child grow into a respectable officer of the law."

Thane could only agree with her assessment, "Yes, I'm sure he will."

* * *

Garrus fitted his battle-scared armor, ready to kill Sidonis for the crime he committed against the squad he betrayed. Garrus boarded a shuttle to Shepard's location, and along the way Garrus sent a message to Aran. "Hey, Aran. This is Garrus. I don't know if you'll get this message before I get there, but I'm going after the traitor that got my squad killed on Omega. If you guys want in, I'd really appreciate it. Look for us in Zakera Ward, level 26."

* * *

Thane had returned to the Normandy as Garrus arrived to take his place. Aay'han and Lissarkh stayed with Prudii for a bit longer. Shepard learned from Bailey that the Fade had begun his operations about a year ago, working for the Blue Suns. Bailey was also able to point them to some of the Fade's contacts who work out of the warehouses in the marketplace. An aircar flew down and landed close by with its only passenger, Araniik Tervho.

Garrus greeted the Mandalorian leader, "Glad you came." Garrus paused hoping another skycar was coming, "So are the others going to be fashionably late?"

Aran shook his head as he answered, "Sorry but this is all we're getting. Kix is too steamed about what happened with the Collector Cruiser incident, Vren and Rang are busy working on a few things, Bev is working with the Professor on something a 'special project' he called it, Rasen is with Swoop and Dagger shopping for parts, Forta has Sal and Jak getting supplies, this isn't something I want Tare a part of, and Nyona is busy being herself. Besides, I had a feeling you guys would end up finding each other somehow." Aran then addressed Aa'yhan, "It was because of Talid, right?"

Lissarkh answered in a rather unusual manner, "It seems that the Force still has its way here, connecting individuals such as you and your brother from time to time."

Aay'han finally asked the group, "I'm happy we're all together and everything, but why exactly are we doing this?"

Aran answered in Mandalorian, "_Aruetii kyrayc alit. Gaa'tayl _Garrus_ skira._"

Lissarkh replied to Aran, "Normally a Jedi does not condone such actions but seeing as Jedi do not exist here, I will join you only to ensure you don't get yourselves killed."

Aran graciously replied to Lissarkh, "Thank you, General. I wasn't expecting you to help us. If we're lucky we'll only have to confront the traitor."

* * *

Agreeing a large team might scare the Fade or his contact away; Garrus, Shepard and Aran confronted the contact. Walking down into the area and the warehouse had been cleared excepted for two krogans in matching light green and black combat armor and green crests. One of the krogan's signal to someone out of view and as Shepard moved forward a volus in a dark exosuit walked out from behind a few crates.

Shepard was surprised to find a volus, "Fade? You're not quite how I imagined you."

The volus started to act tough as he used the old proverb, "Looks can be deceiving." He quickly turned back to business, "So…which one of you wants to disappear?"

Garrus cut in as he hinted to their true intent, "I'd rather see you make someone reappear."

"Ah…that's not the service we provide."

"Make an exception." Garrus pulled out a pistol as he took aim at the volus, "Just this once."

The volus turned to his bodyguards as he shouted, "Damn it. Quick…shoot them! Shoot them, you lumbering mountains!"

Araniik pulled out both of his ACP repeaters aimed at the two krogans as Garrus continued to hold the pistol to the volus, "I think you two can find someplace else to be while we talk to the volus."

One of the krogans nodded as both walked away. The volus yelled, "Just like that? You're not getting paid for this! What's the point of hiring protection if they won't protect you?"

Aran put away the repeaters as Shepard tried to get answers from the volus, "We're looking for someone. A client of yours."

Without his guards the volus quickly became submissive as he corrected the Commander, "Not mine. I'm not Fade. I just work for him. Sort of."

"I knew it," Shepard slightly gloated of his disbelief in the volus.

Garrus lowered to the volus as he placed the pistol to his chest, "Well then maybe you'd like to tell us where to find him."

The volus quickly complied under the circumstance, "Yes. Of course. He's in the factory district, works out of the old prefab foundry."

Garrus was familiar with the area, "I know the place."

The volus was a coward and warned the group, "Uh…he's got a lot of mercs there…Blue Suns. Harkin thinks they're protecting him."

Aran asked the volus knowing full well the organizations reputation, "What do the Blue Suns have to do with this?"

The volus explained, "They use his services…to help their people infiltrate businesses and various organizations here on the Citadel."

Garrus was disgusted, "Bastard. He's using C-Sec to help those scum."

"No, no, no. Well, not really." The volus continued, "He got fired from C-Sec a while ago. But he still knows the systems."

"Interesting. But it changes nothing. We still need to find him before we can get to Sidonis."

Shepard turned to the others, "Well, let's go pay Harkin a visit."

Garrus added, "We'll need to go the transit station. I can get us to him from there."

The volus was hoping Garrus had forgotten all about him, "So I…I can go?"

Garrus didn't mind warning him, "Sure, but if we don't find Harkin, we'll be back for you."

"Oh good," dreading the possibility of them not finding Harkin.

* * *

Taking two skycar, the team moved to the factory district following Garrus close behind. As Garrus landed a team of Blue Suns were moving a crate. Shepard spotted Harkin as he walked out from behind another crate, "There he is."

Harkin saw the strangers and paused as he saw a ghost, "Shepard?" Harkin turned to the Blue Suns as he ran into the factory, "Don't just stand there…stop them. Stop them!"

Garrus pulled out his assault rifle as he shouted, "Run all you want, Harkin. We'll find you!" The two Blue Sun mercs took cover just as Garrus and the others found cover. Aran tossed a frag grenade causing one of the mercs to jump out of cover and right into the crosshairs of Garrus and Shepard. Thinking they were busy killing his partner, the second Blue Sun was about to fire on them until a beam reach out of the fog. The shot pierced the small circular eye cover of the merc's right eye. The shooter was Prudii using his DC-17 sniper as the X3M flew down with its canopy open.

Aran expressed amazement in Prudii's shot, "Excellent kill as always Prudii."

Prudii was not so complacent about the kill, "No, my shot was off. I was aiming for his left."

The team proceeded into the factory where they immediately found a rather poorly maintained desk with an active computer, it seemed Harkin did much of his business here. Just as Aay'han moved in one of containers opened as a pair of LOKI mechs activated and opened fire on the team. Aay'han opened fire on the machines, quickly dispatching both. "Are we expecting more surprises like that?"

Garrus answered, "This place could hide a small army if Harkin's as corrupt as I think he is now." Without warning two more LOKI mechs had walked through the maze of crates to attack the team.

* * *

Vren was fine-tuning his modifications to the Z-6 when Rang walked in. "Whatcha doin'?"

Vren has learned the hard way that it was easier to just tell Rang and be done with it, unless someone wanted to end up with food on their face on a later date. "I've just made this chain gun even deadlier. I thought you were testing on those corpses."

Rang examined the barrels of the Z-6 as he explained his presence, "I was. Now I'm waiting for a few of the cultivations to grow and react to the samples. Huh…" Rang then noticed, "The gears seem to be a bit loose."

Vren corrected his assessment, "I had to do that if I wanted the new motor to push the barrel's fast enough to fire two-hundred rounds at full speed. I'm also trying to get the shots to cluster a bit better at distance. I did a few test fires and noticed the shots start to drift around a hundred meters or so."

Rang wasn't sure what Vren was expecting, "Well it's a blaster cannon, not a sniper rifle. The thing was built for two things; crowd control and blasting the fierfek out of anything in your path. Now it's even more devastating with a faster firing rate. I've got a suggestion though, if you could feed a belt into the chamber, you could carry around a pack full of thermal clips so you can go on a rampage for a good time."

Vren started back up on the weapon as he asked, "Should you be getting back to your bugs?"

"Well, until Prudii gets back, I guess you're the new grump of the ship. See you around, groucho."

Vren jokingly asked Rang, "Should that title go to Nyona's first?"

"I'm crazy at times but not stupid. If I ever say that to her face she'd rip my head off with her biotics, or worse…destroy my lab."

* * *

The owner of the store yelled, "And don't come back to my shop!"

"That's the fifth store that's kicked us out. Why is that?" C3 guess the possibility she may be to blame. Swoop patted her doomed head, "Nah, you wouldn't do, maybe because we look like Aran and the others?" referring to the design of their armor.

Dagger wasn't so sure as he continued to keep their conversation between themselves, "Well they might have scanners to detect AIs but I highly doubt it if they don't delve into that kind of research."

Rasen knew the real reason, "It's probably because of me. Many people blame quarians for the geth attack on the Citadel two years ago. I'll go back to the ship so you guys can get the parts we need."

Swoop stopped her, "Hey now, Sigma Squad treats you like a sister, that's good enough for me in my book. Ain't that right Dagger?"

Dagger nodded, "Anyone that Sigma Squad respects, we respect. Come on, we're going to get those parts we want. And we're not letting some store clerk kick us out this time." Rasen wasn't expecting the two pilots to be willing to support her so openly like Sigma Squad had in the past. And as the promised, the two pilots stood their ground over the store clerk as they looked through the catalogs for parts and equipment.

* * *

Garrus and the others were cutting through the Blue Suns and the mechs quickly. Lissarkh crushed LOKI mechs using her Force powers as Araniik covered her, leaving the mercs to Garrus and the others to gun down. Now the only forces stopping them were two batarian legionnaires. Lissarkh grabbed one of the batarians and exposed him to the others, lifting him into the air. Prudii however had set up the Widow sniper rifle for the second legionnaire waiting for him to expose himself. Just as the batarian was about to shoot at Shepard, Prudii fired. The Widow's powerful shot easily broke through the shields as it penetrated his skull, his nerves pulled he the trigger, spending the clip.

The next area looked like another office. They checked the area as Garrus found the controls to lower the walkway. Lissarkh could feel the anticipation and hate Garrus was feeling as he noted, "We're getting close."

Lissarkh stopped the team from crossing the bridge as she warned them, "I can sense several of these Blue Suns waiting for us up ahead. They have a heavy mech ready for us."

Prudii grabbed the Widow and set it up again on one of the crates next to the computer. Aay'han took lead and continued to walk forward cautiously. One of the larger containers opened as two Blue Sun mercs charged out in a surprise attack. Unfortunately for the turian, Prudii spotted him and took the shot. The round broke through the turian's faceplate as Aay'han was able to kill the other merc. The team broke off for cover as more Blue Suns joined the fray.

One of the turians got close to Aran as he tried to hit Aran with his rifle. Aran dodged the swing and grabbed the butt of the rifle, pulling the weapon and turning it on its owner as it now rested against the turian's helmet. Aran forced the turian to pull the trigger, killing him almost instantly. Shepard's Revenant ripped through the Blue Sun Commander's shielding as the incendiary rounds burned through his extra armor plating. Garrus was about to snipe the last merc until he heard the distinct sound of a crane moving closer. The wireless crane was carrying a folded YMIR mech to their location, and Prudii shot the crane itself.

The Widow devastated the machine, leaving a small entry hole that destroyed its transceiver. The crane lost control as it and the inactive YMIR crashed into another crane holding a larger crate. The crate fell, crushing both the YMIR and the smaller crane underneath. The commotion of the crane crashing gave Aran time to close the gap between him and the last merc and jab him with his knuckle vibroblade into the gut.

The team gathered again as they entered a small office, "What the hell is Harkin up to?"

Shepard opened the shutters as Garrus looked out the window. Shepard had a run in with Harkin two years ago, and he was a drunken ass back then, "So, Harkin's finally gone completely bad."

Garrus started out into the next area as he noted, "He was always a pain in the ass. But I'm in no mood for his games. If he doesn't cooperate, I'll beat him within an inch of his life."

Shepard was starting to get worry about Garrus, "You seem to be getting tense, Garrus."

Garrus told Shepard what he had concluded, "Harkin may know why Sidonis wanted to disappear. If so, he knows why we're here and I don't want him tipping Sidonis off." Off in the distance there was movement as they took cover, "Did you see that?"

Prudii answered as he prepared his DC-17, "Yeah. Clanker."

Aran didn't like the area's layout, "He's already has his pawns waiting."

Aay'han asked the others, "So what's your plan if this Harkin guy doesn't want to cooperate?"

Garrus blatantly commented, "He's a real criminal now. Working for the Blue Suns. I should just shoot him on sight. But I need him alive, so I won't do any permanent damage. Just enough to loosen his tongue."

Lissarkh could only express her disproval of Garrus' actions, "As a former officer of the law, you of all individuals should know such actions are not correct."

Garrus quickly answered the Jedi, "Don't worry. Harkin's a coward. He'll talk long before I can really hurt him."

Shepard peered back at the window, "What do you think Harkin's got waiting for us in there?"

Aran didn't like the area as the Mandalorians had to fight in a situation similar to it, "Harkins is cornered, he might have an escape route, but I'm sure he'll try to throw Blue Suns at us. If he's smart he'll have snipers and heavy weapons ready to pin us down so they can send in the fodder or the heavy mechs to try and finish the job."

Shepard turned back to Garrus questioning about his decision, "You still planning to kill Sidonis when you find him?"

Garrus was only fired up even more for the shot, "That's the plan. It'll be quick and painless. Unlike everyone he betrayed, he'll be spared the agony of a slow death. It's more than he deserves, but as long he's dead, I'll be satisfied."

Lissarkh interrupted as she openly stood out and gazed out the window, "Revenge is a dark path that only leads to more destruction. The death of one will not make amends for the death of others."

Shepard agreed with the Jedi, "She's right Garrus. Do you really think killing Sidonis will make things right?"

Garrus looked up to Shepard as he remembered how Shepard taught him to handle situations, "I know you don't like it, Shepard, but I have to do this."

"Is there no other way?"

"Maybe. But this is personal." Garrus seemed to have put a lot of thought into this and he wasn't willing to change his mind, "I'll pull the trigger. And live with the consequences. All I'm asking is that you help me find him."

Aran was ready, "It's now or never."

* * *

**A/N: **So my updates are going to be even more sporadic than usual as I now have three stories to try and keep up with, and I'll try to update all around the same time. I'll be sending this message to the others who are only readying the other stories so I don't feel bad about it,

**Mando'a Translation:**

Aruetii kyrayc alit. Gaa'tayl Garrus skira(ah-roo-AY-tee keer-AYSH ah-LEET. gah-TAY-le Garrus SKEE-rah)- A traitor killed his own clan. We're going to help Garrus get revenge.


	50. How to deal with a traitor

**A/N: **Almost done with the Citadel now. I should have just done a double chapter update, then again I forgot about the dialog blocks at the end of this mission.

* * *

The squad was ready to go through the last door and into the new area. Aran activated the door as Aay'han took point. With the area clear of hostiles, he signaled the team to move up. Prudii entered next as he took position next to the door in preparation for an attack. Shepard moved up followed by Garrus and Aran. EDI was assisting Shepard in their effort to find Harkin as she notified him, "Shepard, I have patched into the warehouse scanners. The crates in the transport carriers overheard are rigged to explode when dropped."

Shepard replied to the information for the AI, "Good to know," as cranes moved through the area, with three dropping off a group of LOKI mechs. Aran signal Prudii to go around and flank right. Aay'han moved to engage the mechs but just as he moved out from behind cover, a Blue Sun merc on an elevated platform fired off a missile at the clone commander. Lissarkh pulled him back to cover behind a few crates as the missile veered after him, destroying one of the crates on impact.

"Why don't you just turn around?" Harkin shouted over the loudspeakers. Prudii grabbed the DC's sniper components. His position did not give him a clear shot at the heavy weapons merc but he did spot another merc just waiting for a hole in his helmet. Without hesitation, the commando killed the merc before he could become a threat to the others.

Garrus grabbed his Mantis sniper rifle as he steadied his breathing. Aran, Shepard and Aay'han moved to positions behind the other crates scattered about the area, taking care of the mechs and keeping the two mercs with high ground distracted. Lissarkh also added in this endeavor, clouding the minds of the two mercenaries, preventing them from noticing Garrus when he was ready to attack. Aay'han and Aran's time destroying Separatists battle droids proved to be more than advantageous as the LOKI mechs quickly fell to the duo. The Blue Suns Commander however was becoming a nuisance along with the missiles from the lackey. Just before the merc could fire off another missile, Garrus killed her with a shot between the eyes.

Prudii climbed up onto one of the elevated platforms as the others moved up to finish the last Sun off. They were able to knock out his shields before a new group of LOKI mechs were flown in by cranes. This was enough for Prudii, as the batarian did not have a bucket over his head. As the batarian let loose with his Revenant assault rifle Prudii got a clean shot in the center of the batairan's face, between his four eyes. Finishing the last mech, Garrus was fed up with the resistance, "Harkin's going to regret this!"

The team moved on with Shepard leading. Harkin shouted over the loudspeakers again, "I'm not running from you, Shepard!"

Prudii liked the perspective the higher platform offered and climbed up instead of following. Just as the team was about to clear the segmented area, Garrus spotted trouble above, "Oh, crap. Two heavy mechs—incoming!"

As the cranes carrying the YMIRs moved closer, Harkin taunted the team, "Do you really think you can take me down, Shepard?"

Lissarkh had enough of these machines and grabbed both cranes before they could drop their cargo. Exerting her connection to the Force, Lissarkh began to close both of her hands as the machines were slowly losing their integrity. Moments after his fists had closed shut, both cranes and the YMIRs they carried imploded into themselves leaving only two balls of mashed metal and wires. Releasing her grip, the remains dropped to the floor in a thud, "This has gone on long enough."

Harkin became scared after seeing such unusual abilities and strength as he started to mess with the platforms in front of the control center he was in. "You'll never make it!"

There was a clear path of steps from the crates and platforms to the left of the control center and the recently elevated platforms made Harkin blind to that area. But Harkin did have two LOKI mechs active next to that door and the two simple VIs moved to engage the squad. Aran and Prudii quickly put down both of the clankers, destroy both head so the squad could confront Harkin.

As Harkin tried to find where they were, Shepard moved up to the open door but Garrus saw a way around. Prudii and Lissarkh joined Garrus as Aran, Aay'han and Shepard prepared to confront Harkin. Shepard waited for Garrus' signal over the comlink before he moved in with his pistol draw as Aran and Aay'han flanked him. Harkin ran for the door away from them as he thought he was scot free, "You were close, but not close enough."

Garrus was waiting for him as he smacked him in the face with the stock of his assault rifle. As Harkin was recovering from the attack, Garrus grabbed Harkin by the shoulder before he was dragging him to the wall and pinned him, "So, Fade…couldn't make yourself disappear, huh?"

"Come on, Garrus—we can work this out. Whaddaya need?" Harkin was overconfident, believing he was in no real danger, or at least he wasn't going to die.

Garrus let go of Harkin as he took a few steps away from Harkin. Prudii continued to hold his rifle at Harkin as Garrus asked him, "I'm looking for someone."

"Well, I guess we both have something the other one wants." Garrus quickly turned around to Harkin and kneed him in the gut.

Shepard joined Garrus in trying to get information from Harkin, "We're not here to ask favors, Harkin."

Harkin finally got up from the brutal hit, still hesitant to believe either of them as he sarcastically said, "You don't say."

Garrus quickly turned to Harkin, "You helped a friend of mine disappear. I need to find him."

Harkin continued the sarcasm as he told Garrus, "I might need a little more information than that."

Garrus gave him specific, "His name was Sidonis. Turian, came from the…"

Harkin cut him off, "I know who he is, and I'm not telling you squat."

Shepard was now playing the 'good cop', "Harkin, this doesn't have to be hard."

"Screw you," unwilling to accept of believe Shepard. "I don't give out client information. It's bad for business."

Garrus kneed Harkin again as he placed his talons on Harkin, "You know what else is bad for business? A broken neck."

"All right! All right! Get off me!" Lissarkh was about to send Garrus across the room until she saw Shepard gently nudged Garrus' shoulder. Garrus released Harkin from the pin under his foot as the human jokingly commented, "Terminus really changed you, huh, Garrus?"

"No, but Sidonis…opened my eyes. Now arrange a meeting."

Harkin turned to the terminal as Garrus signaled for him to do it. "I'm going."

Aay'han turned to Aran as Harkin arranged the meeting, "Damn, that was rather rough."

Aran tried to explain it, "Advisor, Garrus lost ten good men in a trap that was set up by one of his own. I know we'd don't usually have to worry about traitors among us clones, but Garrus put a lot of trust into these guys, hell we were friends as wells. But Sidonus helped kill them, the mercenary gangs on Omega teamed up to wipe the team out. They succeeded in killing the squad, but not Garrus. I know you didn't know any of them but we're not going to let Sidonus get away with this."

Harkin finished talking with Sidonus as he informed Garrus, "He wants to meet you in front of Orbital Lounge. Middle of the day. So, if our business is done, I'll be going…"

Garrus grabbed Harkin by his collar, "I don't think so. You're a criminal now, Harkin."

"So what…you're just going to kill me? That's not your style, Garrus."

There was a pause as Garrus stared Harkin in his eyes before releasing him. "Kill you? No." Garrus pulled out a pistol he had concealed, "But I don't mind slowing you down a little."

Lissarkh was about to pull Garrus' arm but Shepard did it instead, pull the pistol up into the air just as Garrus pulled the trigger, "You don't need to shoot him. He won't be able to hide from C-Sec now."

Garrus shrugged Shepard off his arm as he agreed to Shepard's consideration, "I guess it's your lucky day."

"Yeah. I hope we can do this again real soon."

Garrus turned back to Harkin as he head-butted him. Garrus smirked as he told Shepard, "I didn't shoot him."

Shepard continued on as Lissarkh and Prudii walked to join them, "Come on. Let's move."

Garrus warned Harkin, just like his volus contact, "Sidonis better be there, or I'm coming back to finish the job."

* * *

As the two skycars moved to the meeting point, Garrus lamented, "Harkin's a bloody menace. We shouldn't have just let him go. He deserved to be punished."

Shepard turned to his friend concerned, "I'm getting a little worried about you, Garrus. You were pretty hard on Harkin."

"You don't think he deserved it?"

Shepard was just looking out for his friend, "It's just not like you."

Garrus couldn't respond to Shepard as he looked out the glass, "What do you want from me, Shepard? What would you do if someone betrayed you?"

Shepard answered truthfully, "I'm not sure, but I wouldn't let it change me."

* * *

As Shepard continued to try and convince Garrus not to go through with his plan, Lissarkh convened with the clones about this matter as well. "As I Jedi, I cannot let Garrus kill Sidonus. You do realize that, Araniik?"

"I understand, ma'am. But Garrus lost a lot of good people because of Sidonus."

Lissarkh countered, "Many good Jedi, clones, and civilians have died because of Sidious, should we seek revenge for everything he has done? No, in the end the light will prevail. The Force has its ways of ensuring that, even if we do not always see it or its results."

Prudii seemed to understand her, but that still didn't help the feeling of losing the few friends outside of the Mandalorians they had, "Then what should we do, General?"

Lissarkh was calling upon the teachings she had received from Plo Koon, "First, we must understand his actions, why he did what he did. If his heart is sincere and his reasons understandable, Garrus must see reason."

Aran nodded, "Yes ma'am. It looks like they're about ready. Sidonus will recognize our armor, so Prudii and I will stay here with Garrus while you guys head down with Shepard."

Lissarkh and Aay'han joined Shepard in his X3M as Garrus moved into position. Prudii grabbed the Widow and handed it to Garrus. Garrus accepted the rifle as he propped the sniper onto the railing to compensate for the weight. Garrus checked the comm signal, "Shepard? Can you hear me?"

Shepard replied as Aay'han got out of the skycar, "Loud and clear."

Prudii was the first to spot Sidonus, "Advisor, your one o'clock. Bench. About twenty meters."

Aay'han turned and spotted the lone turian sitting on the bench, "I've got him."

Garrus told Shepard, "Wave him over and keep him talking."

Shepard did and Sidonus walked over to the group. Garrus had Sidonus in his sights as he's mandibles continued to flap in anticipation. Sidonus spoke to Shepard, "Let's get this over with."

Garrus had a perfect shot but Shepard was in his way, "You're in my shot. Move to the side."

Shepard wasn't going to let Garrus go through with his plan, "Listen, Sidonis. We're here to help you."

Sidonus leaned to Shepard as he tried to hush him, "Don't ever say that name aloud."

Shepard explained, "I'm a friend of Garrus'. He wants you dead, but we're hoping that's not necessary."

Sidonus wasn't expecting to hear that name again, "Garrus? Is this some kind of joke…?"

Garrus was pissed Shepard wasn't following his plan as he warned him, "Damn it, Shepard. If he moves, I'm taking the shot!"

Sidonus saw Shepard's eyes look away as though he was listening to someone, "You're not kidding, are you? Screw this. I'm not sticking around here to find out. Tell Garrus I had my own problems…"

Aay'han grabbed Sidonus' shoulder as Lissarkh moved herself into Garrus' line of sight as well, "Don't move."

Sidonus shouted as he threw his arm into the air, "Get off me!"

Shepard explained to Sidonus as he whispered, "We're the only thing standing between you and a hole in the head."

"Fuck," Sidonus knew if Garrus had him in his sight, he was as good as dead. Sidonus tried to explain himself, "Look…I didn't want to do it…I didn't have a choice."

Garrus didn't agree with Sidonus, "Everyone has a choice."

Sidonus continued, "They got to me. Said they'd kill me if I didn't help. What was I supposed to do?"

Garrus didn't like Sidonus' excuse, "Let me take the shot, Shepard. He's a damn coward."

Aay'han was disgusted, "That's it? You were just trying to save yourself? When you commit to a team, you die for that team if it means they live."

Sidonus didn't need Aay'han to tell him that. He walked over to the railing as Lissarkh, Shepard and Aay'han continued to cover him, "I know what I did. I know they died because of me, and I have to live with that. I wake up every night…sick…and sweating. Each of their faces staring at me…accusing me." Garrus wasn't expecting guilt, he had thought Sidonus betrayed them out of greed or hate, but now, "I'm already a dead man. I don't sleep. Food has no taste. Some days I just want it to be over."

Garrus was tempted to let him live, but his lust for revenge outweighed that thought, "Just give me the chance."

Shepard tried to convince Garrus, "You got to let it go, Garrus. He's already paying for his crime."

"He hasn't paid enough. He still has his life…"

Lissarkh turned to Garrus' location as she conversed with him, "Look at him. He's spirit is broken. Both you and he need healing, of which both of you could help the other heal these scars you hold in your hearts."

"My men…they deserved better." Aay'han could understand Garrus, but this wasn't the way.

Sidonus turned to Shepard and the others, "Tell Garrus…I guess there's nothing I can say to make it right…"

Sidonus' confession affected Garrus more so than he was anticipating. Garrus became hesitant now. Aran had placed his hand on the turian's shoulder as he told him, "Just let it go…"

Garrus finally conceded, telling Shepard, "Just…go. Tell him to go…"

Shepard turned back to Sidonus as he told him, "He's giving you another chance, Sidonis. Don't waste it."

Sidonus wasn't expecting that as he got up and spoke to Garrus through Shepard, "I'll try, Garrus. I'll make it up to you, somehow." He then spoke to Shepard, "Thank you. For talking to him." Shepard nodded as the two groups walked their separate paths.

* * *

As Shepard rejoined Garrus on the upper walkway he told Shepard, "I know you want to talk about this…but I don't. Not yet."

Shepard knew this was the best outcome, "I know it didn't go the way you planned, but I think it's for the best."

"I'm not so sure…"

Shepard patted Garrus' arm, "Give it time."

"Yeah. Maybe that'll be enough. I want to know I did the right thing. Not just for me—for my men. They deserve to be avenged. But when Sidonis was in my sights…I just couldn't do it."

Lissarkh has seen this before. "Good and evil are line we must define, but those we know blur that line."

Garrus nodded, "Yeah. There was still good in him…I could see it. It's so much easier to see the world in black and white. Gray…I don't know what to do with gray."

Aran lightly punched Garrus in the shoulder, "That's what your instincts are for."

Garrus couldn't help but laugh, as he noted, "My instincts are what got me into this mess."

Shepard assured him, "Don't be too hard on yourself."

"Thanks, Shepard, Aran. For everything. Let's get going. I need some distance from this place."

Shepard agreed, "I'm with you."

Aran clasped Prudii's hand as the two commandos went their separate ways, "Stay safe brother. I'm expecting you to keep us up to date of anything we need to watch out for." Prudii nodded before they released their grip.

* * *

Dagger, Swoop and Rasen returned to the Tervho with as their purchases were being loaded into the ship's hangar bay. Prath was awaiting their return. "Rasen, you received an urgent message from the Migrant Fleet. I made sure no one read the message, not even I. I forward it to your personal account for you to read through at your pace."

Rasen bowed to the volus, "Thank you for respecting my privacy, Prath." Prath nodded as he waddled back to one of the terminals. Rasen turned back to Dagger and Swoop, "Sorry, but I want to check on the message as soon as I can."

Swoop shrugged, "Eh, no problem, just as long as that message doesn't have any bad news or anything."

Rasen went through a second decontamination to enter her room so she could remove her helmet. She placed her Mandalorian helmet onto a manikin and her quairan envirosuit mask onto her desk. Accessing her computer, Rasen found the message Prath was talking about. As she read through the content, she gasped in horror and dread. "No…It can't be…"

* * *

**A/N: **I think you all can see where we're going next. Now I forgot to mention it in the last chapter to explain, but I have found that if you can hit the YMIR mechs before they land during the Garrus loyalty mission(depending on how high or where, not entirely sure) but they usually explode in mid-air(at least for me). So a good shot, Concussive Shot, Overload, or Warp can kill a YMIR before it deploys, real helpful for a Insane run.


	51. A trial of inconvenience

**A/N: **Now to see what the message Rasen said was. And hello to all of you who jumped to the last chapter.

* * *

Tali tried to turn back to her console, but Prudii could tell that she had been crying. "Tali?"

As the doors to the Normandy's engineering opened, Tali turned around expecting someone else. "Shepard, I…oh, Prudii…I," Tali immediately turned back to her terminal, "How was everything on the Citadel?"

Prudii could see Tali was trying to hid something - her voice was slightly sore from crying to herself, and he could see the silvery trails of tears on her face through her helmet. Prudii wasn't sure if he could help her but he was going to try. "Tali? What's wrong?"

"No…it's, it's nothing. I…" Prudii gently placed a hand on her shoulder. He could feel her body shivering, afraid or nervous about something. He motioned her to follow as he moved to the drive core. She finally stopped pretending everything was alright and told him, "Prudii, I've been accused of treason by the Admiralty Board. I'm scared, Prudii."

Prudii was furious at the news that the Admiralty Board, two of them being her father and a close family friend, could even conceive such a thought. "No, you would never betray the quarians. They must be mistaken."

Tali wasn't as confident about it. "I don't know. They don't lay charges like this unless the evidence seems absolute. But thanks. I appreciate your faith in me, Prudii."

Prudii glanced back to Gabby and Ken. "Do you think it has something to do with Cerberus?"

Tali shook her head. "No, I was given permission to serve on the Normandy again. I even told my father that you were still with me, watching over me."

Prudii looked back at the two engineers again. "Well, we could always grab a hostage, hijack the shuttle in the hangar and get this all resolved now."

Tali wasn't sure if Prudii was joking or serious about that suggestion, but she didn't want to do something that drastic. "I think we can save that plan as a last resort. I want to tell Shepard. Hopefully he is willing to take the time out to help, otherwise I'll book us transport on another ship to take us there."

* * *

As Aran and the others returned to the _Tervho_, Rang was waiting for them, "Araniik! We need your help."

"What's the matter?"

Rang motioned to walk and talk. "It's Ras, boss man. She's locked herself in her room and she's not talking to anyone."

Aran accused Rang, "Did you do something to her mask's air filter again?"

Rang took offense at that. "Hey, how was I supposed to know she was going to have such a reaction to the smell of lemon-lime? You know I'd never do anything to hurt her!"

They worked their way to the crew deck were Beviin was trying to talk to her. "Rasen, you know you can talk to us. Unlock the door so you can tell us what's wrong." Bev saw Aran and Rang approach as he stepped aside.

Aran knocked on the door, "Rasen? It's Aran. Are you alright?"

Prath had found his way to them as he informed them, "I believe I know what the matter is. We had recently received a message from the Migrant Fleet. I forward the message to Rasen's personal email so she may look at it in private. I do hope the two are not related, but if they are, I believe our next course of action should be to find the Migrant Fleet."

Aran made a mental note of the suggestion and responded, "It will be, but I want to speak with her first." The door unlocked. Aran was the only one in full armor, so he entered the decontamination chamber alone. Inside her room, Rasen was refitting her mask as the door opened. She had her back to Aran as he moved closer. "Rasen, do you want to talk about what's the matter?"

Rasen sat down in her chair. "Aran…" She was tired, she had been crying and she was exhausted. "I…I'm being charged with treason…"

"What? There has to be a mistake! They must have the wrong Rasen."

She stopped him with an upraised hand "Our people have maintained excellent records of our current population, individuals with the same name among our people are rare enough but the fact that the message was sent to the Mandalorian account is irrefutable. When the Admiralty Board accuses a quarian of treason, they must have evidence that seems undeniable and affects the entire fleet's safety."

Aran wasn't going to stand for it. "Rasen, you know everyone on this ship would gladly defend you. Why didn't you want to talk about it?"

"Because…" Rasen wasn't sure anymore, "Because you guys are always watching over me, protecting me from a distance like Ysin…I don't want…I…"

Aran took her into his arms and embraced her, "It's alright. We'll get this resolved. We won't let you be considered a traitor. We promise."

Rasen knew when ever Aran made a promise, he would keep it, just like his contracts. Rasen finally accepted his hug as she grabbed him. "Thank you…"

* * *

As they approached the Migrant Fleet Rasen, like Tali, asked for docking clearance, "This is Rasen'Doran vas Idenna nar Tonbay requesting permission to dock."

They were greeted with the same security as last time the Mandalorians docked with the Fleet. "_Tervho_, we have you flagged on approach. Please verify."

Rasen recited her personal passphrase she had memorized before departing for her Pilgrimage: "Through time alone in darkest space, Past nebulas bright and emptiness, I come now, to port at last."

"Identity confirmed. Welcome Rasen'Doran."

As per procedure, Rasen, made the usual request for a non-quarian vessel. "We request a security and quarantine team to meet us. Our ship is not clean."

"Understood. Approach exterior docking cradle 9 on the _Rayya_."

As they made their approach they spotted the Normandy along with its Cerberus colors and symbol. Rang noted obviously, "Looks like we might be seeing Tali and Prudii too."

Rasen knew what was involved in a trial. "Araniik, if Mal isn't here I need you to be my defense councilor."

Aran nodded. "Tare, Bev, Rang, we're heading out. Nyona, you're in charge while were gone. Don't do anything crazy."

* * *

On board the Rayya they were greeted by a security team. "Welcome to the _Rayya_, Captain Araniik. It is an honor to meet you."

Aran extended out a hand to shake, "We're just here to clean up this mistake my _vod_ here is in."

The security chief replied, "I understand. As the captain of the ship she serves on, your voice will carry weight."

Rasen was uneasy about the whole setup. "Security Chief, why is my trial on board the _Rayya_? I've only stepped foot on her twice before. Why was I not sent to the _Idenna_ or the _Tonbay_?"

The quarian was quiet for a moment. "Because you and Tali'Zorah are both being charged with bringing active geth into the Fleet as part of a secret project."

"What? I…I would do no such thing!" She then remembered when Prudii asked her to examine geth components to send back to the Fleet. In the back of her mind she was desperately hoping the two were not related. "I…I…I've…sent deactivated parts and non-functioning pieces…as a request for a friend." Rasen knew if Prudii was there he would defend her but she didn't want him to. She wanted to just clear this and move on.

Again, the security chief was hesitant. "Technically, we're under orders to place Tali'Zorah and Rasen'Doran under arrest pending the hearing. But the captain has decided to confine both Tali and Rasen to this ship until this trial is over."

Rasen gave the chief a nod. "Thank you."

"Regardless of what I think, that was the Admiralty Board's decision. Preparations for the trial got underway as soon as Tali had arrived. I would suggest you hurry to the garden plaza before they start without you." As one of the security team members escorted them, the security chief said to Rasen, "Good luck, Rasen'Doran…"

As they past several quarians, Sigma Squad couldn't help but overhear some of the conversations, many of them negative toward both Tali and Rasen. As they got closer to the garden plaza a quarian woman came up to them. "Rasen? Rasen is that you under that armor?"

Rasen then embraced the other quarian in a hug as she too expressed her joy. "Keelah! I didn't think you would be here." Rasen then released the quarian and turned to face her Mandalorian 'brothers'. "Sigma Squad this is a friend of mine from the _Ideena_; Shani'Tore." Rasen turned back to her friend, "Shani, I wasn't expecting to see you until after the trial. What are you doing here?"

Shani shock her head. "Don't be silly Ra. As soon as I heard you were being charged with treason, I went straight to the Admiralty Board to defend you."

Rang had to interrupt. "Ra, huh? So what happened to 'Little Ra'?"

Rasen tried to defend herself. "Ra is just the nickname I let my engineer team call me or close friends on the _Ideena_. Not that we aren't close friends…I mean…"

Beviin tried to change subjects for her, "So Shani, if you're part of the Conclave do you know any details about what's going on?"

Shani looked down, "Besides Ra and Tali being charged for treason and Shala'Raan recusing herself because of her history with the Zorah family. Before I forget, the Admiralty Board had also decided to try Tali under vas Normandy and you, Ra…as Rasen'Doran vas Tervho."

Rasen was speechless, almost collapsing from the news. "…vas Tervho…"

Rang was confused. "OK, I think I missed the memo here. Is the change in name a bad thing?"

Shani answered, "They stripped them of their ship names! It's practically calling them exiled already. But I will not let these _bosh'tets_ get their way. Not with my friend."

Rasen saw some hope with Shani's presence. "Shani, is my brot…I mean, Captain Mal…is he here?"

Shani didn't want to answer but she couldn't see a way to refuse. "I'm afraid that the Admirals did not wish to interfere with Mal's search for a new planet to colonize. Admiral Zaal'Koris has forbid any communications about this trial to the _Idenna_ until it's over or the _Ideena_ returned to the Fleet and we both know how unlikely the latter would happen in time. But it wouldn't matter even if Mal was here, your ship name is vas Tervho now, so the captain of the _Tervho_ is your representative for the trail."

Araniik nodded immediately after hearing that. "Understood. I'll see to it that these Admirals know that Rasen isn't one to threaten this fleet or anyone in it."

Shani looked behind her. "You better hurry. I see more people sitting down so that means Tali'Zorah has arrived."

Rasen, Tare and Sigma Squad rushed over to the gathering. Tare, Rang and Bev stayed at the top of the stairs while Rasen and Araniik were next to Shepard, who was in full armor and helmet in respect for how clean quarian need to be, alongside Tali and Prudii. Shala'Raan was moving to the center of the plaza onto a podium with three other quarians whom were standing behind a bar. One was a male who had a black visor with a tarnished brown exo-suit. To his right another male with a blue tinted visor and a red and grey exo-suit. Last was a woman on the far left who also had a blue visor but a predominately black exo-suit.

With Shala now standing behind them she spoke to the entire room. "This Conclave is brought to order. Blessed are the ancestors who kept us alive, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this season. Keelah se'lai."

Every quarian in the room, including Tali, Rasen and Tare, echoed the blessing. "Keelah se'lai."

Admiral Raan then continued, "The accused, Tali'Zorah vas Normandy and Rasen'Doran vas Tervho, have come with their captains to defend themselves against the charge of treason."

The male quarian in front of Raan shouted, "Objection! Humans have no business at a hearing involving such sensitive military matters! Even the Mandalorians must be escorted out, despite past actions!" The mentioning of the Mandalorians caused whispers to spread among the other quarians.

Rang muttered to his brothers, "Two sentences into the trial and I already don't like this guy."

Shala then countered the Admiral's objection, "Then you should not have declared Tali crew of the _Normandy_ or Rasen crew of the _Tervho_, Admiral Koris. By right as captains, Shepard and Araniik must stay."

Sigma Squad, attuned to subtle body motions as a result of living in armor, could see Koris' embarrassment as he drew back. "Objection withdrawn."

Shala continued again, "Shepard vas Normandy, your crew members Tali'Zorah stands accused of treason. Will you speak for her?"

Shepard stepped forward and, speaking with a voice that carried around the Conclave chamber, said "If it helps Tali, I will. But in her heart, she remains Tali'Zorah vas Neema, a proud member of the Migrant Fleet. I regret that her captain is forbidden to stand at her side today."

Koris retorted indigently, "Nobody has been forbidden from anything! It is a simple…"

The other male quarian to the right interrupted Koris. "Lie to them if you must, Zaal'Koris, but don't lie to me and expect me to stay silent! The human is right!"

Raan broke the two up before the fight could proceed any further. "Admirals, please. Shepard's willingness to represent Tali'Zorah in this hearing is appreciated." Admiral Raan then turned her attention to Araniik. "Araniik vas Tervho, your crew member Rasen'Doran stands accused of treason. Will you speak for her?"

Aran stepped forward, "I will go to the pits of hell themselves if it means I can help any of my _vode_. But if anything, Captain Ysin'Mal should be standing here today, not I. Even so, Rasen's efforts on the _Ideena_ should be able to speak for themselves. She risked her life to get her team to safety, and then she willingly put herself in harm's way to inform us about Mal's orders. Without her the _Ideena_ would not have been repaired soon enough to embark on her journey to search for a new homeworld, for her people, as quickly as she did."

The quarian who opposed Koris earlier agreed. "Well said, Araniik. None of us should forget Rasen's contributions to the Fleet."

Shala then addressed both quarians, "Tali, Rasen, you both are accused of bringing active geth to the Migrant Fleet. What say you?"

Shepard answered first. "Tali would never endanger the Migrant Fleet. She pleads not guilty."

Tali tried to clarify what she did. Wringing her hands with anxiety, she testified "I left parts and technology for teams to pick up. My father ordered me to do so. But I would never send active geth to the Fleet! Everything I sent was disabled and harmless."

Aran told the Admiralty Board, "Rasen loves her people too much to ever cause harm to the Fleet. She too pleads not guilty."

Rasen tried to show where she stood through a lie, "I was asked by Admiral Rael'Zorah, like Tali'Zorah, to send any geth component I could find that would not endanger the Feet. I personally made sure these components would not reactivate or initiate self-repairs."

Prudii could not stand by any longer. He stepped in front of Rasen as he gentle moved her aside to made himself noticed by the quairans and spoke to the Admiralty board. "I asked Rasen to examine geth parts, not Admiral Zorah."

Loud murmurs rippled through the crown at this revelation. Koris demanded, "What's the meaning of this? Who are you?"

"RC-2433, Prudii Tervho. Sigma Squad. Tali'Zorah knew we would likely engage geth in the future so she asked me to help her. I have little technical skills…"

Rang butted in shouting, "It's true your honors. If it wasn't drilled into him by our drill sergeant, a simulator, or has step-by-step instructions included, he's like a blind man trying to describe color to a deaf man."

Koris disagreed, "We recognize your many efforts and assistances you and your members have contributed to this fleet and its people, but that still does not excuse Rasen'Doran's actions."

Prudii continued, "I asked Rasen without telling anyone else. She knew how to send the packages back to the Fleet, she knew what to look for to determine if the parts were safe or not. Rasen'Doran would never endanger the Fleet! If words are not enough then blame the person who got her in this mess…me."

Aran contacted Prudii privately through his _buy'ce_. "Are you sure you want to do this?" Prudii simply nodded his head. Aran then turned to the Admirals, "You quarians are a family. You're all brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews. To us, Rasen and Tare are our sister and brother and Prudii would never ask either of them to do anything that would endanger their families both on the _Tervho_ and on the Migrant Fleet. We four have lost thousands of brothers to war, a war hopefully none of you will ever experience and though we were not close to all of them, losing one is never easy."

Admiral Koris became more agitated as he shouted, "That is all fine, but it fails to explain how geth seized the lab ship where Admiral Zorah was working!"

The crowd was getting worked up again. Tali, who was already nervous, started becoming frantic. "What are you talking about? What happened?"

The other male Admiral, Han'Gerrel vas Neema, explained, "As far as we can tell, Tali, the geth have killed everyone on the Alarei…your father included."

Tali was in shock from the sudden news, "What? Oh, Keelah…"

Aran didn't always show it, but he knew everything about his brothers and he knew what Prudii planned to do. He tried to convince his _vod_ not to, "Don't do it, Prudii. Don't…"

In an instant Prudii his DC-15s pistol and fired a shot directed to Admiral Koris, missing his head by centimeters. The security team on the floor had their assault rifles aimed at Prudii as he continued to aim at Koris. Bev and Rang had to resist the urge to help Prudii, as their fingers twitched trying to reach for their weapons. The only thing stopping the security from outright gunning down the clone was how inaccurate their old rifles were and the possibility that one of the members of the Conclave might be hit with one of their stray shots.

Aran moved himself behind Prudii as he grabbed an ACP repeater and placed it on the back of Prudii's helmet, "Stand down soldier." Prudii wasn't listening as he remained at the ready. "RC-2433! I gave you an order!" Prudii still had the weapon at the ready. Aran made sure this was heard by everyone, "Stand down now or I'll blow that brain of yours onto the floor! Three! Two!" Prudii twirled his pistol in hand before grabbing it by the barrel as he raised his hands in compliance. "Tare, weapons. Rang, remove his pack and gauntlets."

Tare and Rang walked down the steps to Prudii as the two started to work. Rang whispered, "Sorry Bro. You know I'd never touch your stuff otherwise." With all of Prudii's weapons and equipment secured the two walked back up the stairs.

"Beviin, restraints." Bev wasn't going to waste either of their time so he cuffed Prudii from the front as he could dislocate both arms to get out of the position from behind his back. Aran kept this last bit between himself and Prudii, "I understand your feelings about this, but now is not the time for that kind of attitude. I promise we'll find a way to help both Rasen and Tali. You just have to let me handle it. I swear I'll help them." He returned to the court as he addressed the Admiralty Board. "Forgive my brother's actions but his feels about this matter are shared with myself and my brothers. We have a saying, _Aliit ori'shya tal'din_. I though you quarians treated each other as one big family." Aran's voice was slowly elevating until he finally exploded from his anger as he shouted, "If so, then why the hell do you bring this crap up in the middle of a goddamn trial, a trial called upon by insufficient evidence?"

Shala'Raan calmly answered, "Our apologies. Tali should have been informed."

Aran gave them a warning, "Admirals, if you ever try doing something like that with Rasen or Tare, I won't even attempt to stop my brother from killing at least one of you."

Koris wasn't impressed by the Mandalorian's threat, "If you call this attempted assassination a threat…"

"Attempted?" Aran couldn't help but laugh and he let them all hear it. "Admiral, calculate the difference between the shot he did and how much he needed to kill you where you stand. This wasn't an attempt on anyone's life, this was his warning. And he could replicate it. So you best think over your next few words carefully, Admiral."

Tali looked to Shepard and Aran as she pleaded to both of them, "We have to take back the _Alarei_!"

Koris stated, "The safest course would be to simply destroy the ship. But if you are looking for an honorable death instead of exile…"

Tali shouted back at Koris, "I'm looking for my father, you _bosh'tet_!"

Admiral Raan asked, "You intend to take back the _Alarei_ from the geth? This proposal is extremely dangerous."

Shepard answered, "With you permission, Admirals, yes. The good of the Fleet must come first…and Tali needs to find her father."

Rasen added, "I too wish to join them. At this point I don't care if you exile me; I want to help a friend's friend."

Prudii asked his brother if he could join, "Araniik…"

Aran nodded as he turned to the Admirals, "The Mandalorians will coordinate with Commander Shepard in removing the geth from the _Alarei_."

Han'Gerrel was more agreeable then Koris. "Agreed. And if you die on this worthy mission, Tali, Rasen, we will see that your names are cleared of these charges."

Koris whispered to Gerrel, "We will discuss that later."

Shala'Raan decreed, "Then it is decided. You will attempt to retake the _Alarei_. You are hereby given leave to depart the _Rayya_. A shuttle will be waiting at the secondary docking hangar. Be safe, Tali. This hearing will resume upon your return, or upon determination that you have been killed in action." As everyone dismissed, Tali turned back to Shala who flinched away from her stare.

* * *

**A/N: **I've had half of this trial written out long before I even had the full team established(minus the new clones and Jedi). As for Prudii, he is ready to take a few heads, in particular Koris'. Now I only have Shepard and Tali from the Normandy only because the third member(minus Legion) have no dialog what so ever here, even if they were Cerberus. Now I've always found that odd, but that's just me. So, on with the mission.

**Mando'a Translation:**

Aliit ori'shya tal'din.(Ah-LEET or-EESH-yah tal-DEEN.)- Family is more than blood. (Saying)

buy'ce(BOO-chay/BOO-shay)- helmet


	52. Cleaning Crew

**A/N: **Part two of this special update.

* * *

As the quarians dispersed, Tali spoke with Shepard and Sigma Squad. "Thank you both for agreeing to take back the _Alarei_. The admirals sound sure that my father is already dead, but…I don't know. We won't know anything until we get there."

Even with the restrains on his wrists, Prudii tried to help Tali. "Tali, those admirals were relentless. Are you sure you're alright?"

Tali was still recovering from the sudden news. "I knew this would be bad, but I guess you're never really prepared to be charged with treason. And my father…I don't know, Prudii. He could still be alive. They don't know for certain that he's dead. I just don't know…And I need to find out."

Rang smiled as he told her, "Don't worry, with Sigma on the job we'll find him, and save him if we can." If he didn't have the restraints, Prudii would have hit Rang.

Shepard turned to Tali and Rasen as he asked both, "Is there anyone either of you want to talk to before we go?"

Rang pointed out, "I think Tare's already ahead of us on that."

Rasen looked around. "We could talk with the admirals. It might help us to see what their viewpoints are. But I doubt we'll change anyone's mind by talking to them privately."

Aran contacted Aay'han on the _Tervho_. "Did you catch all of that?"

"Yep, I never got rid of the old Sigma channels when I upgraded. I'm getting a team ready to take the gunship. We'll follow you when your shuttle leaves."

"Advisor, quarian ships are tight quarters. I'd suggest not taking Kix. He has a preference for long range combat. Vren is a good choice, as long as he has his shotgun."

"It's a good thing Alpha was able to get me my WESTAR. See on the other ship."

* * *

Tare walked off on his own, trying to see if there was any sign of his cousin onboard. "Veetor!"

"Tare?"

Tare walked up to his cousin and embraced him in a hug. "It's good to see you again, Veetor. How are you doing?"

Dr. Elan'Shiya was standing next to Veetor. "His recovery is going well. But he is still away from a full recovery."

Tare bowed to her, "Thank you for everything you've done for Veetor, doctor." Tare could see Veetor was still rather edgy from his encounter with the Collectors on Freedom's Progress. He placed his arm around his cousin's head, "With my luck Veetor, the Mandalorians will kill the bastards that did this to you."

Tare could feel Veetor shaking but Veetor was able to reply to his cousin, "Thanks. Good luck with it, cousin."

"Stay safe, cousin. I'm glad you've recovered."

Veetor wasn't so optimistic. "Well, I'm not sure about recovered, but I'll try. For you. Good luck on the _Alarei_."

* * *

Tali had only one person in mind that she really wanted to yell at. She immediately started yelling before she could end her prior conversation. "You set me up, Shala! You told Captain Danna not to say anything. I don't hear that my father may be dead until I'm in the trial? Why?"

Shala was calm and sincere in her response. "The admirals needed to hear the shock in your voice, Tali. Otherwise, they might not have let you try to retake the _Alarei_. That is your best chance at recovering evidence that can exonerate you. I'm sorry. We cannot afford sensitivity, Tali."

Shepard didn't always agreed with the Mandalorians about matters, but this was something he wasn't going to let slide either. "I know you're trying to help her, Admiral, but that was over the line."

Even Rang couldn't see the positive about it. "You do realize you sent her into a minefield blindfolded?"

Even with his restrains on, Prudii was tempted to strike her, but he was trying to restrain himself as Shala tried to justify her actions. "She has nobody else to speak for her, Shepard. I'm doing everything in my power. That's what her father would have wanted."

Tali wasn't going to accept it. "Don't say it like that! He could still be alive on that ship!"

Rang tried to ease tensions the only way he knew how, "Hey, it's not like she's sending us into a Geo nest. It's only droid."

* * *

As Aran and the other continued to speak with the other Admirals, Aay'han was checking the team he had assembled to clear the _Alarei_. C3 was planning to join the team for any slicing required to unlock secured doors. Vren grabbed the Claymore shotgun as Nyona was happy with the Katana shotgun. Aay'han was trying to get more information about the geth. "So, they're clankers, right?"

Nyona only knew what Rasen had told them. "I don't know what a clanker is, but the geth are a pain in the ass if they have enough of them. The more geth they have, the smarter they get. Something about sharing brain power on the nonessential stuff so they can think about other thinks, like how to kill us."

Aay'han thought he understood. "So basically we'll be fighting commando droids in bulk until we knock their numbers down, then they'll be fodder."

Nyona wasn't sure how smart a commando droid was but she went out on a limb and agreed with his assessment, "Yeah, something like that." Lissarkh and Pyth were also joining the others in the hangar bay. "Why are you two here?"

Pyth had grabbed one of the Phalanx pistols from the armory as she was fitting the rebreather and mask on her face, "I'm going because I want to see quarian ship design. The design of a ship can show the quarian people's mental and physiological view of the world. Very insightful."

Lissarkh walked into the gunship. "Close-quarter combat is where Jedi excel at."

Vren noticed they were lacking any medics. "Where's Palva? Don't we need medics?"

Aay'han grabbed a few droid poppers from the crate as he answered, "Because we aren't expecting survivors. Aran used his status indicator to flash me a code in _dadita_. This is a clearing op. Aran also didn't want us to tell Tali."

* * *

Having taken the time to speak with the other Admirals and Kal'Reegar, Sigma Squad found the shuttle that was to take them to the _Alarei_. As they left the _Rayya_, the the LAAT/i left the _Tervho_ as they flew escort to the _Alarei_. Prudii was given his equipment again during the shuttle ride as he refitted everything. The shuttle docked with the _Alarei_ through a docking arm as the gunship found a hangar to enter. The quarians bodies around the area wasn't providing any reassurance. The team started to investigate as Vren reported, "Aran, we've got a lot of quarian bodies here. Looks like the geth gunned them down before they could reach the shuttle."

Nyona walked out of the shuttle already sitting in the hangar, "Or killed after disabling it. Systems were fried and the controls were damaged beyond repair, even for a quarian. Looks like they didn't want the geth to escape the _Alarei_. I'm thinking they were hoping the Fleet would destroy the ship, even if they were still alive in it." Dagger and Swoop grabbed DC-15S blasters as they joined the others. Nyona questioned this action, "Don't we need people to watch the ship?"

Swoop answered her, "Look lady, unless these geth can read Aurebesh and unlock our controls I think our birds will be fine on her own. Besides, we've got IM-6 locking the ship from the inside for us."

Nyona still wasn't confident about the situation. "Can't the geth hack into it? What about that?"

Dagger was confident about the situation, "Unless the geth can phase through metal and physically hack it, it'll be safe. Alright Razors, let show these geth we're as deadly on foot as we are in the skies."

* * *

The first room they entered was filled with geth as reinforcements arrived. Rang couldn't help himself while they were in the middle of the fight he commented to the others of Sigma, "Just like the good ol' days, eh squad?"

Bev wasn't sure if he still had his head on, "What good ol' days?"

Rang finished off a geth as Prudii took out a hunter, "You know, when we use to blast clankers for the Republic? Sure it was hell at times, but hey, it's hell now too!"

As the team finished the last geth, Aran turned to the others, "Mandalorians, scout the area. Find anything that might give us clues as to what happened."

Tare found a console with a recorded journal entry, "Araniik, I think I've found something."

The team gathered as he played a recording one of the scientists left behind.

"_Something's slowing down the systems. We're taking down the firewalls to rebalance load distribution. Rael'Zorah ordered us to bypass standard safeties. Following security protocols will take too long_."

Rasen couldn't understand the reasoning behind the actions. "They should have doubled the security protocols not take them down! If they did have any geth programs they should have…"

Tali shouted back "No! It has to be a mistake! Father would not do anything so stupid!"

Shepard didn't want the team to split because of an argument such as this. "Come on Tali, let's find your father."

The team found geth components on a table for examination. Tali recognized one of the units lying out. "This is one of the storage units I sent to Father. Looks like parts from a disabled repair drone, plus a reflex algorithm that I didn't recognize. I got this on Haestrom."

Rasen took a look at the algorithm and remembered extracting it. "It was from one of the staging areas we cleared out for the Alliance."

Shepard was curious as to how Tali was able to grab the components. "Haestrom was a war zone. How did you salvage gear in the middle of all that?"

Tali couldn't help but laugh as she pointed out, "These suits have more pockets than you'd think. Quarians have learned how to salvage whatever we can whenever we can. Within reason. We're not vorcha. But we repair what most people would throw away. Hundreds of the ships in our fleet were salvaged wrecks, either found dead in space or purchased for next to nothing."

Prudii added, "My pack usually doesn't have anything but ammo and a few charges. I had the room."

Shepard asked Tali about the parts. "What made a part worth sending back to your father?"

Tali turned back to the storage unit, "It had to be in working order. Something that could be analyzed and integrated into other technology. Anything new had priority. Technology the geth had developed themselves. Signs of modifications, clues to their thinking."

"How did you get these things to your father?"

Rasen answered him, "We have protocols to send shipments back to the Fleet if we were on Pilgrimage or a mission. For mundane packages we could leave it at a secured drop site in a civilized area so someone on Pilgrimage can make sure it makes it back. For something more valuable we would signal home and a small ship should come by for the package. But for us, we occasionally returned to the Fleet so I could personally hand the package over to Admiral Zorah."

Aran was hoping someone could make sense of these parts. "Can anyone say with certainty if this gear answers as to what's happened?"

Tali wasn't sure, "No. I don't know. I checked everything I sent here. I passed up great finds because they might be too dangerous, prone to uncontrolled reactivation or self-repair. I don't know which possibility is worse: that I got sloppy and sent something dangerous, or that Father actually did all this."

Aran turned to Rasen. "What about your finds? Did you do the same thing?"

Rasen nodded. "Yes, I knew the dangers an active geth presented to the Fleet. I would never send anything that wasn't deactivated."

Rang turned to Aran, "Boss man, Rasen is no fool. You know that, I know that. Let's just hope all the evidence thus far doesn't continue to point down the same end."

Bev found another dead quarian next to an active console. He activated it as another recording started to play:

_"Who's running this system diagnostic? I didn't authorize…oh, Keelah. How many geth are networked?"_

The male scientist answered, _"All of them. Rael'Zorah—"_

The woman shouted, _"Shut it down! Shut everything down! They're in the system!" _The recording ends just before anything else could be said.

Shepard found some rather interesting research notes in one of the console as Tare prepared to continue into the next area. Rang entered the room as Bev and Tare followed close behind him. Just about half way into the room the door at the other end opens as Beviin notices the shimmer of a cloaked target. "Hunter!"

The geth hunter deactivated its cloak as it opened fire with its shotgun. Tare was now behind it as he tried to gun the geth down. It turned to try and grab Tare. Beviin activated his secret project he and Pyth had developed. Both of Beviin's omni-tools activated and deployed blade-like attachments at his fingertips. Beviin jabbed his blades into the back of the hunter before pulling his arms away, slicing the geth in two. Bev moved to the head of the geth as he finished it for good with one last jab into its eye.

Prudii was interested in Bev's little invention. "You copying me, _vod_?"

Bev was actually smirking under his helmet, "It's not copying since my blades are longer than yours." Bev started to examine his arm as the omni-tools shut down, "It was a rather successful field test. I'll have to alter the power settings, though - both of my omni-tools are nearly spent after that."

Tare found two more bodies in the corner as the others moved into the room. Aran found another recording left by the research team. It was her last one,

_"We locked down navigation. Weapons are offline. Our mistake won't endanger the Fleet. They're burning through the door. I don't have much time. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Jona, if you get this, be strong for Daddy. Mommy loves you very much!" _

She was able to finish just as the door was blasted open and she was gunned down by geth. Aran wasn't going to let this one go. _Your child will ma'am. I swear it._

* * *

Aay'han wasn't sure if they were walking into a trap or if something else as their attention. "Aran, this is Aay'han. We haven't run into any droids, but we're encountered a lot of bodies. About fifteen scattered about. I think half of 'em were security."

Rang answered, "Yeah, we've found a few on our end too. Not looking pretty. I think we're got the geth's attention 'cause we've got three quarians with us. Just a theory, but I think it's a factor."

Lissarkh found a door that had been welded shut and another that was blocked by several crates. Using the Force she moved the crates aside as she opened the door. The room had contained a geth prime. It tried to strike Lissarkh in the head, but she countered it with her mind. With a swift strike of her lightsaber, she severed the geth in two as she proceeded to crush the upper half of the body.

Jak kicked the legs as he turned to the others. "Is this what a geth is? Damn bastards huge."

Vren knew better. "Nah, that was just a Prime. Normally they're tougher to kill, but I guess with that light blade it's simple. Normal geth are about human size though."

Rook looked around, "So that means there's going to be more of the little ones around really soon."

Nyona readied her shotgun. "Yep. Geth are like pests - find one, you'll find more."

The new area had several geth units searching for something. Aay'han signaled Rook to move to a flank position to the right as Jak moved to the left. When the two were ready, Aay'han tossed a droid popper into the middle of the group. As the grenade took its affect against the machines Rook and Jak picked off the few that weren't affected by the grenade as Dagger and Swoop took down the geth that would recover soon. Nyona used her biotics to crush the hunter among the group before Vren joined in on the attack. Pyth fired a few shots at the geth, hitting with every shot. Lissarkh held a door closed ensuring the geth could not call in reinforcements. When the team moved to position Aay'han nodded to Lissarkh to release her grip on the door. As the geth tried to flood the room they were quickly cut down before they could get a shot off against them.

* * *

**A/N: **As I'm sure some of you noticed, I skipped a few fights to speed things along again because the geth reinforcements in some of the areas were a pain in the ass both fighting and attempting to write it out. Don't worry I'll have a few more out there and in better detail.

**Mando'a Translation: **

dadita(DAH-ee-TAH)- similar to Morse code; an old Mandalorian code transmitted in long and short tones that conveyed letters and numbers that could be transmitted via flashing lights, banging on a metal surface, or even hidden in static. Considered low tech and obsolete, and was known to very few outside the Mandalorian community


	53. The Truth…

**A/N: **This is a notice for only the people who did not notice the two new chapters before hand. This time I'm doing a special three part update to try and speed things along before ME3 releases, that and added to the fact that I already had portions of this already planned out in my mind before we were this far. So for those who jump straight to the last chapter, go back two chapters and I'll see you all back here.

* * *

In a small room, Tare found another quarian as he checked her pulse. Rasen started to access an active console. Aran turned to her. "What do you have, Rasen?"

Rasen couldn't tell yet. "Most of the data is corrupted, but a few bits are left." She had to read through the information as it came through but some of it wasn't making any sense to her. "They were preforming experiments on geth systems, looking for new ways to overcome geth resistance to reprogramming. But why…"

Shepard turned to Tali, "Do you think testing weapons on the geth was right?"

Tali couldn't feel sympathy for the machines. "It's not testing weapons on prisoners, Shepard. I only sent Father parts. Even if he assembled them, they wouldn't be sapient. You saw what Saren and Sovereign did with the geth. Any research that gives us an advantage is important."

Prudii asked her, "You have any clue as what kind of tests your father was running?"

"No. Father just told me to send back any geth technology I could find that wasn't a direct danger to the Fleet. I suspected he might be testing weapons, but I thought he was just working on new ways to bypass shields or armor."

Bev asked Rasen, "Could any of that data clear your names?"

Rasen deactivated the console, "Doubtful. This is mostly results data. Effects of different disruptive hacking techniques. I don't understand all of it." Disturbingly, she added "But…they may have been activating the geth deliberately. I don't know. Nothing here says specifically. But if they were…"

Tali stopped her, "No, not Father. He wouldn't." Tali remembered a conversation she had with him a while back as she whispered to herself, "What was all this, Father? You promised you'd build me a home on the homeworld. Was this going to bring us back home?"

Shepard wasn't sure if the risks were worth it for war. "Maybe it's time for your people to let go of reclaiming your world from the geth."

Rasen and Tali both exploded in anger as Rasen started, "You have no idea what it's like, human! You have a planet to go back to! Our home is one hull breach away from extinction!"

Shepard tried to calm her down. "You've got a place here. Don't throw it away in a war you don't need."

Tali yelled at Shepard, "Don't need? Shepard, if we don't wear a helmet in our own home, we die! A single kiss could put me in the hospital! Every time you touch a flower with bare fingers, inhale its fragrance without air filters, you're doing something I can't! Damn the Pilgrimage. Without it, I might never have known what I was missing. What we had lost when we lost our homeworld."

Tare remembered Rasen's brother and the mission they had been assigned by the Admiralty Board. "What about Captain Ysin'Mal? Currently he and the Idenna are trying to find a new world for us to colonize."

Tali retorted, "We'd have enough difficulty reacclimating to our own native environment. Adjusting for exposure to a foreign colony would be even harder. It the difference between 60 years and 600. For anyone alive now to watch a sunset without a mask, we must take back our home." Tali was furious enough about the situation. As she walked away from the others, she added "At the very least, we can take back one ship. Come on."

Prudii tried to speak with Tali privately and calm her down. "Tali, back where we're from, our home was a ship named the _Atonement_. We were created on a planet. I never really liked Kamino. All ocean, usually raining. A lot of clones view it as home but my home will always be a ship. Both the _Atonement_ and _Tervho_ are my homes. Your people aren't the only one who lives in a ship. I know we can remove our armor, but we aren't too different."

That didn't make Tali feel any better, nor did it help calm her down. Aran was certain one thing that would help calm the two, shooting a few geth. "Come on squad, Admiral Zorah is somewhere on board, so let's get to him before the geth do."

Opening the door, the area next area was overall excellent from a tactical point of view. They had the high ground, and the geth would be exposed most of the time as they would have to try and reach the stairway to get to them. Prudii had his DC sniper as the others took positions to gun down any geth Prudii wasn't killing. As the first group of geth appeared through the door below, a door on the same level as them opened as a geth tried to flank them. "Sneaky bastard!" Rang gunned the bastard down before being forced back to cover by the other geth.

Prudii picked off the two troopers as Tare and Beviin tag teamed the hunter, using thermal signatures to track it. Aran signaled Rasen to keep the stairway clear of geth as the others continued to chew threw the geth as he made sure no more geth tried to appear through that door again.

* * *

Now it seems the geth were aware of Aay'han and the others as the geth started to lure them into traps, using the dead quarians as bait. The team quickly figured that out the second time they checked on the bodies. The hunters tried to gun down the team but Lissarkh threw them back against the wall as she continued to watch their back. "Vren, left flank!" Nyona knocked the gun away from one of the geth's hands as she placed the shotgun at pointblank range and blasted the parts out of it. Vren's Claymore blasted the other geth to pieces. Pyth was more surgical with her shots, aiming for the eyes and their 'heart' along with a few disabling shots that knocked a few geth to the floor. C3 even helped out against a few geth as she used her shock arm to stun them for the other to gun down with ease.

Lissarkh had yet to draw her lightsaber again as the quarters were far closer than she had anticipated and she did not wish to damage the interior of the ship more than necessary, but she could still call upon the Force to aid the others in combat.

* * *

Having burned through several thermal clips, Bev and Rang moved to check to ensure the geth were down as Prudii and Tare watched their back. Rang openly called out, "Well I don't know about you but I think we fulfill the conditions of Rule 1 and Rule 17." Prudii switched his DC back to its AR form as they joined Rang and Beviin on the lower level.

As Rasen listened to another recording from one of the researchers, Shepard opened the door all of the geth had come through. Tali spotted the body and recognized it. "Father!" As she rushed to his side, she was in a panic. "No, no, no! You always had a plan. Masked life signs, or, or an onboard medical stasis program, maybe. You! You wouldn't…They're wrong! You wouldn't just die like this! You wouldn't leave me to…"

Prudii grabbed her shoulder. "Tali…"

Tali turned to Prudii as she grabbed him and he, hesitant at first, took her into his arms as she cried, "Damn it! Damn it." Aran tapped Tare's shoulder as the two stepped back. Tali let go of Prudii as she apologized for breaking down. "I'm sorry."

Prudii didn't see a need for her to apologize. "No, you don't need to be. There's nothing you need to be sorry about."

Tali turned back to her father as she couldn't help but think there was something more. "Maybe…He would have known I'd come. Maybe he left a message."

As she tried search him, Rael's omni-tool activated. It was a hidden message as it projected his image, _"Tali. If you are listening, then I am dead. The geth have gone active. I don't have much time. Their main hub will be on the bridge. You'll need to destroy it to stop their VI processes from forming new neural links. Make sure Han'Gerrel and Daro'Xen see the data. They must—" _before he could finish the sound of the doors opening and geth gunfire echoed as the recording ended before his death.

Tali shook her head sadly. "Thanks, Dad."

Rang tried to cheer her up. "Hey Tali, I'm sure he was trying to build up to say 'I love you'. I mean he was longwinded last I saw and it really looked like he wanted to say more until his message got cut short."

Tali quietly responded to Rang, "No. I know what he was going to say. Come on. Let's finish this." Prudii was tempted to sock Rang in the arm, but instead clenched his fist as he followed Tali's lead.

* * *

Aran was having a private conversation with Tare and Rasen about the evidence they'd see so far. "What's your opinion Rasen? Do you really think Rael did all of this on purpose or was it simply an accident?"

As much as Tare admired the Admiral, he couldn't defend him this time, "I'm sorry, but even with everything Admiral Zorah has done for the Fleet, I can't help but believe he was actively assembling the geth."

Rasen agreed. "I'm sorry to say it too, for Tali's sake, but the evidence points to Rael'Zorah being at fault here."

Aran wasn't sure how the Admirals would proceed with this information. "What would happen if it did ends up being Rael's fault, what would the Admiralty Board do with this information?"

Tare really didn't want to think about the situation but he already knew the answer. "First, the Admiralty Board would have Rael'Zorah's name stricken from the manifest of ever ship he had ever served on. Then they would privately deliberate any other further posthumous charges they would believe need to be given."

Rasen knew the more public response to such a crime. "The others would see him as the worst war criminal ever." Rasen had only regrets for her previous inaction. "If only I had created a manifest of all of the geth components I had sent…we wouldn't be in this situation."

Aran knew even Jedi couldn't plan for everything. He placed his hand on her shoulder. "_Vod_, you can't blame yourself for something you could never have foreseen. We will find a way to clear your name so you can return to the Fleet and be with Mal whenever you want."

* * *

On the bridge of the _Alarei_ the team found a team of geth huddled around an active terminal. Rang was tempted to use an EMP grenade on the group but Prudii might beat him should the terminal be damaged before they could look through its data. It wasn't too bad, three basic geth, a hunter unit and a Prime.

Shepard turned to Aran as the two made a plan to take down geth without speaking a word. Shepard gunned down one of the geth troopers with his Revenant as he pulled back to lure the other geth into the trap. Bev was ready as he jabbed the trooper that travel around the left side with the force pike and pulled it in as he finished it with a swift strike from his vibroblade. The last trooper was escorted by the hunter as it activated its cloak. Prudii countered as he too went invisible as he maneuvered himself behind the two and disabled the trooper with his vibroblades. Rasen and Tali quickly brought down the hunter with their shotguns before it had a chance to attack anyone. Prudii had to quickly fall back to cover as the Prime tried to gun him down.

The Prime deployed its combat drone in its efforts to flush Prudii out and into its kill zone. But Rang, Rasen and Tali deployed their combat drones in a counteroffensive. Chiktikka and Rasen's drone eliminated the geth drone, Rang's combat drone quickly caught the attention of the Prime as it deliberately moved into its sight. The geth fortunately was no longer near the console but still not far enough for a droid popper as Rang's combat drone exploded it weaken one of the room's beams. As the two remaining combat drones began their assault, the other started to attack the Prime from different positions, quickly whittling away at its defenses until Tare delivered the killing blow to the Prime.

As the light of its eyes started to flash, Prudii walked up to the geth as he crushed the head under his boot. Rang congratulated Tare with a slap on the back. "Nice shot, Tare. Remember, Primes are worth at least three kills."

After following Rule 17, the team investigated the active console the geth had gathered around. As Tali paced in front of it, she noted, "This console is linked to the main hub Father mentioned. Disabling it should shut down any geth we missed. It looks like some of the recordings remained intact. They'll tell us how this happened, what Father did."

Shepard could hear the hesitation in her voice, as could Sigma Squad. "You sound like you don't really want to hear it."

Tali took a deep breath as she answered truthfully, "No. We have to, I know. I just…this is terrible, Shepard. I don't want to know that he was part of this."

Tali activated the console as it replayed the recording. Rael'Zorah appeared from the edge of the camera as he spoke to two of the researchers:

_"Do we have enough parts to bring more online?"_

_"Yes. The new shipment from your daughter and Rasen'Doran will let us add two more geth to the network."_

_The woman added her concerns. "We're nearing a breakthrough on systemic viral attacks. Perhaps we should inform the Admiralty Board, just to be safe."_

_Rael disagreed. "No. We're too close. I promised to build my daughter a house on the homeworld. I'm not going to sit and wait while the politicians argue."_

_The other quarian commented, "I'm still not sure why Rasen'Doran is sending us parts but if she and Tali'Zorah could send back more working material we'd have an easier time."_

_Rael reprimanded the two. "Absolutely not. I don't want Tali exposed to any political blowback. As for Doran, I believe Tali may have asked her for assistance because of their connection to those Mandalorians. It doesn't matter. Leave Tali and Rasen out of this. Assemble new geth with what we have. Bypass security protocols if need be."_

Tali shut down the system as she felt dread fill her heart. Rang really tried to help her out of her despair. "You know I think I have to take back every negative thing I ever thought about your father. He really did care for you, in a rather unusual way, but he still cared."

"I never wanted this, Rang. Keelah, I never wanted this." Tali started to tear up as she finally accepted the truth before her. "Everything here is his fault! I tried to pretend it didn't point to him, but this…When this comes up in the trial, they'll…" Tali didn't want this, "We can't tell them, not the admirals, not anyone."

Shepard tried to make her see reason. "Tali, without this evidence, you're looking at exile!"

Tali didn't care. "You think I don't know that? You think I want to live knowing that I can never see the Fleet again? But I can't go back into that room and say that my father was the worst war criminal in our people's history. I cannot."

Shepard pointed out what her father had said in the recording. "Rael'Zorah doesn't need you to worry about him anymore. You heard him say he didn't want you or Rasen caught in the politics!"

Rasen stopped Tali from snapping at Shepard as she explained. "Yes we did, Commander. But this would ruin every good thing Admiral Zorah has ever done for the Fleet. They would treat him worse than an exile. For generations he'd be a monster for children to take heed in a cautionary tale. I know Admiral Zorah has done many good deeds for the Fleet, and I can't let them be destroyed for my name."

Tare questioned what Rasen was saying, "Rasen, what about Captain Mal? You'd never be able to see him again."

Rasen's fist clenched. "I know…And I…"

Beviin interrupted, "No. Neither of you will be exiled. And Rael'Zorah's name will also be spared."

Rang had his doubts. "And how exactly are we going to pull that one off?"

Beviin didn't have the answer, and was hoping Aran did. "That's for the captains to decide."

* * *

As Nyona tossed another geth across the room she noticed the others had stopped firing. "Cease fire!" The geth were now deactivated as one by one they collapsed onto the floor. Nyona contacted Aran for a status update, "Hey, something weird just happened. The geth just shut themselves down. Did you guys do something?"

"Yes we did, Nya." Rang was using the convenience that they were several decks apart just so he could call her a few different pet name he has for her, "Now we've got to get back before the Admirals declare us dead or something. You all can return to the ship. See you there, blue vixen."

Nyona unleashed a biotic blast as she crushed one of the inactive geth. Lissarkh was unimpressed by her misuse of power and ill temper. "Troopers, let us return to the ship."

* * *

**A/N: **Alot of crazy shit just happened and the Mandalorians are stuck with a dilemma. Even though Sigma Squad is a friend of Tali's, Rasen's name is also hanging on the line here. Will Aran betray Tali to help Rasen?

**Mando'a Translation:** Sorry, the commandos are just bing careful with what they say around Shepard.


	54. In Closing…

**A/N: **Time to finish this trial, one way or another.

* * *

The gunship did a flyby alongside the shuttle confirming the team was all accounted for before they diverted to the _Tervho_. Reentering the _Rayya_, the team could hear the admirals bickering, "We need to face facts. There has been no word. There is no reason to think Tali'Zorah or Rasen'Doran survived."

Rang couldn't help but laugh, "Oh, I think he hurt my feelings with that one. Thinking we'd fall to a bunch of clankers. Who does he think he's talking about, frontline grunts?"

Shala'Raan however was trying to delay the proceeding for them as long as she could, "It has only been a few hours!"

Han'Gerral could not believe that after seeing the few marines who did survive, actually feeling sympathetic about the loss, "Araniik was right. Springing the information about Rael on Tali…we practically dared her to take back the Alarei. We killed them."

Koris however seemed to have little remorse on the matter, "A pity Shepard vas Normandy is a better speaker than a soldier and it seems the reputation of the Mandalorians has been highly exaggerated. I recommend posthumously exiling Tali'Zorah and Rasen'Doran."

"What?" Garrel was disgusted by Koris' unanticipated suggestion.

Raan had hoped Garrel's promise would have been kept, "It was agreed that Tali'Zorah and Rasen'Doran would not be convicted if they were killed in action!"

To which Koris quickly reminded the preceding Admiral, "It was suggested, Admiral. I recall no agreement. To that end, I call for an immediate vote."

Shala'Raan could no longer delay the matter and proceeding with the trial without the accused, "Very well. Is the Admiralty Board prepared to render judgment?"

Before they had a chance to declare their decision, the team returned with Rang yelling, "Honey, we're back!"

Tali had a smug look on her face, hidden by her mask, as she told the Board, "Sorry we're late."

Shepard declared to the Admirals, "We cleared the geth from the _Alarei_. It should be safe for your people to return."

Korris uncharacteristically bowed to Shepard, "Thank you. We sincerely appreciate your efforts to aid the quarian people."

Gerrel asked the two captains, "Did you find anything on the _Alarei_ that could clarify what happened there?"

Shepard was the first to step forward as Tali pleaded to him one last time, "Shepard…please…"

Raan asked, "Does Captain Shepard have any new evidence to submit to this hearing?"

Shepard had to think for a moment before he finally lifted his head up to respond. "Tali helped me defeat Saren and the geth at the Citadel. That should be all the evidence you need."

Korris responded to that immediately, "I fail to see what relevance—"

Shepard interrupted as he used their talks to expose the admiral's intent, "You're not really interested in Tali, are you? This trial isn't about her. It's about the geth."

Korris quickly fired back, shouting, "This hearing has nothing to do with the geth!"

Shepard started to point out the truth, "You want people to sympathize with them!" Shepard didn't go easy either as he also used Han'Gerrel to their advantage, "Han'Gerrel wants to go to war! None of you care about Tali!" Shepard made sure the rest of the Conclave knew the mistake they were about to make, "She knows more about the geth than any other quarian alive. You should be listening to her, not putting her on trial! Tali'Zorah saved the Citadel! She saved the _Alarei_! She showed the galaxy the value of the quarian people. I can't think of stronger evidence than that."

Araniik whispered to Shepard as he congratulated him, "You want to play it that way, huh? Now when things go to hell, try not to react."

Raan now asked the Mandalorian as Aran stepped up to the podium, "Does Captain Araniik have any new evidence to submit to this hearing?"

Aran stood proud as he answered, "Rasen'Doran's accomplishments are the only evidence we need." Aran turned about as he signaled, "Mandalorians, load up! We're heading out."

As they turned away from the Board, Koris shouted in anger at them, "This is a formal proceeding!"

Aran quickly turned around as he slammed his fist into the podium, breaking it in two, "Shut up, Koris before I decide you need a broken jaw!"

Koris took this as a serious threat as he secretly called for the security team to restrain him. Aran seemed to have anticipated this move as he proceeded to beat a few up. The first guard he subdued with a strong gut punch as he grabbed the second one by the arm and threw him over his shoulder and onto the floor, placing a boot onto his chest. Beviin and Rang stopped the security team on the upper area as Rang tasered them with his LJ-50's blunt EMP bayonet as Beviin quickly swept a few using his force pike and smacked the other, careful not to let the pointed ends damage any of their suits. Prudii moved in and intercepted one, disarming him before striking a few nerve blows that left the quarian unconscious. Prudii then caught two in headlocks as he extended both of his vibroblades to the visors of both quarians.

Araniik pulled his ACP repeater on Koris as he told him, "As you can see Admiral, killing you wouldn't be that hard for the four of us. It's a matter of if we really wanted to spill your blood or the security team here you called on me." Aran rarely let himself go like that, only a few situations has he ever let rage control him in such a manger. Aran released his captive and holstered his weapon soon followed by the other members of Sigma Squad. The gauds gathered their equipment and their unconscious fellows as Aran continued, "Rasen and Tare are two of the most dedicated members of the Migrant Fleet I've ever seen. They have taken credits they had rightfully earned and helped quarians on Pilgrimages get past hurdles they would have otherwise had to resort to crime or even send it directly to the Migrant Fleet for miscellaneous purposes. Personally, I really don't give a damn what you do with your broken fleet, but you ever pull my crew into this kind of political bullshit again, be prepared to face the rage of the Mandalorians. And I can't guarantee blood won't be shed next time." Aran had to pause for a moment to calm himself as he took a deep breath before continuing, "You can accept Rasen's word, or exile the woman who helped save the _Idenna_ from Cerberus."

With both captains finished, Raan turned to the other Admirals, "Are the admirals prepared to render judgment?" Admiral Daro'Xen was the first to cast her decision followed by Gerrel. Koris took a moment to turn to the defendants and the event that had just unfolded before him. After he casted his vote, Shala'Raan announced the verdict, "Tali'Zorah, Rasen'Doran. In light of your histories of services, we do not find sufficient evidence to convict. You are both cleared of all charges. Commander Shepard, Captain Araniik. Please accept these gifts in appreciation for you taking the time to represent two of our people."

Shepard took this moment to try and convince the quarians to prepare for a more important war, "If you appreciate me, then listen: the Reapers are coming. I'm going to need your help to stop them. Please don't throw away your lives against the geth."

Koris didn't seem to believe in the Reaper threat, just like the Citadel Council, though he was going to use his words to rally for peace with the geth, "Thank you, Commander Shepard. I hope this board carefully considers your advice." Shepard knew his words were bound to be twisted as he pushed off what was left of the table and shook his head in disgust.

Araniik however had something else to tell the quarians, "With all due respect, Admirals, I didn't represent one of your people. I represented one of mine."

Gerrel agreed, "So you did, Araniik."

Raan formally brought the trial to a close, "This hearing is concluded. Go in peace, Tali'Zorah vas Normandy. Rasen'Doran vas Tervho. Keelah se'lai."

Every quarian then echoed the blessing just like when the trial was started, "Keelah se'lai."

As the Conclave dispersed, Tali reflected on the small arena, "I can't believe you pulled that off. What you said… I've never had anyone speak like that on my behalf. Thank you for being there for my father and me, even when…Thank you."

Shepard joked with her, "We can still go back in and get you exiled, if you want."

Prudii didn't see much humor in it, but Tali did, "Hah! Thanks, but I'm fine with things like this. It's fun watching you shout."

Prudii turned to her to discuss about what happened on the _Alarei_, "About your father, what happened…you deserve better…"

Tali stopped him, as she corrected the clone, "I've got better, Prudii. I got you, and Shepard."

Prudii nodded to her as Shepard smiled behind his helmet. "Come on, Tali'Zorah vas Normandy. Let's get back to our ship."

"Thank you…Captain."

* * *

Rasen couldn't help but continue to be amazed by the commandos, "Not only did you shout down the Admiralty Board, you also got them to drop the charges…I didn't think it would be possible…"

Rang pointed, "Well those Admirals seemed like they needed to be knocked down a peg or two. Remind them they aren't the biggest fishes in the galaxy."

Tare was just glade no one was severally injured, "The security team doesn't seem too worse for ware, other than their pride as defenders of the Fleet I mean."

Beviin wasn't exactly impressed, "No offense, but they could do with some more training."

Shani sprinted up to them and she grabbed Rasen, "Oh Ra, I'm glad your friends were able to convince the Admirals you were innocent. For a moment there I thought I was never going to see you again." She turned to Aran, "And you, I'm glad you were her captain today. It seems Mandalorians really are as impressive as your reputation makes you out to be, huh?"

Rasen smiled as she took her old friend by her head, "Yes, and not all this short tempered either."

"Sorry to leave during all of this heartfelt moment, but I've got a pests to squish," Rang walked away and called out Shepard, "Yo, Commander! I need you for a bit. Alone."

Shepard wasn't exactly sure why Rang wanted to speak with him, but he didn't see any harm. "What is it?"

Rang activated his omni-tool, "Hold still for a moment." A human skeleton soon displayed on the omni-tool as a few indicators highlighted four areas on the body. "Just as I thought…" Rang's right arm swung back as he grabbed something from his pack. It was an EMP grenade and he adjusted the size of the blast radius and the effective frequencies, continuously referring back to the omni-tool scan. "OK, hold this for me."

With the EMP firmly in Shepard's hand, Rang took a big step back just before the grenade went off. The grenade numbed Shepard's muscles as a small wave of blue energy emanated about half a meter out. As the energy dissipated Rang grabbed Shepard before he fell to the ground, "Wha…"

Rang gladly explained, "You my friend are feeling the after effects of an EMP, of which I altered so you could remain conscious and recover from quickly. You know, kinda like your whole body just falling asleep on you for no reason, but it should only last for about another twelve seconds or so."

As Rang predicted, Shepard felt fine now as he stretched his arm and neck, "What was that for?"

Rang pulled up the display on his omni-tool, "You, Commander, were bugged. Aran had me scan you when we were on Omega. With only a discreet scan I was only able to detect a very faint, very subtle signal coming from you. At first I thought it was the armor, but with this more thorough examination I was able to determine the origin of the signal, inside you. And since Cerberus resurrected you, it would not come to question that the Illusive Man might have planted some type of monitoring device or something in you to keep tabs on your 'adventures'. I just wasn't expecting so many." Rang scanned the Commander again to check, "Well it looks like most of your cybernetics survived as I'd hoped, and most of the little buggy bastards have been deactivated."

"Most?"

Rang told him a rather open tone, "Well there is this one located here in your noodle. If I up the power output on a droid popper I'm sure I could kill it, but that would likely kill you, or at least leave you brain dead. Actually I'm not sure. I've never used setting that high against an organic before. But I can say Mr. Illusive will no longer be able to listen to any of your conversations ever again. He might know where you are though, no guarantee about the last one."

Before either party could continue any further, Prudii walked into the conversation as he pulled Rang over, "You have them this time?"

"Yep," Rang pulled out two handfuls of black zip ties from his pack, "Your favorite color. We just can't seem to have enough, eh _vod_?"

"Not since you made me use most of mine when we went after that pirate gang."

Rang couldn't help but chuckle, "Well we did get more than our credits worth when we literally handed over the entire gang to the Alliance."

Before Prudii could respond to that, Araniik signaled to Prudii via HUD that he wanted to speak with him privately. Prudii didn't need to say a word as Rang stepped aside for him.

* * *

Aran was waiting just at the foot of the steps from where the trial was. "Prudii, I know Shepard's trying to bring down the Reapers and the Collectors…have you guys run into anything that could indoctrinate people?"

Prudii wasn't sure why this topic suddenly came up, but he answered truthfully, "No. At least I don't think so."

Aran was glad to hear it. He turned to Prudii, "We recently had a run in with a mine. All of the miners were turned into husks. But for some reason, as we got closer to the device, we actually heard something." Prudii wasn't sure if he had to worry about anything yet, but Aran assured him, "Don't worry, I'm not contagious. And the General exerted herself to protect our minds. She has a theory as to why we were affected so quickly but she also taught us a few tricks to help protect our minds should we ever encounter another one. It involves keeping our mind constantly occupied with something other than the situation on hand."

Prudii thought he understood as he tried to think of an example, "Like kill counting?"

"Hah, Rang actually asked about that one. The General said we'd be unprotected in-between counts. Instead she pulled out a pazaak deck she kept with her. She had us play it as an example as Pyth tried to read our minds. She told us all she could 'hear' was us calculating numbers and playing pazzak. But the General also said anything that had our mind thinking of other things would make a good mental barrier, should we run into a Reaper device and its indoctrination signal."

Prudii understood as he grabbed his brother's hand, "I've got it. And thanks…for keeping your promise."

"I told you I would. I never break a promise to _vode_. _Oya'kari pirusti_, Prudii."

"_K'oyacyi_!."

* * *

The clones and Shepard were able to speak with the Admirals and a rather impressed Kal'Reegar once more before parting ways once again. On their way back to engineering, Prudii noticed Tali's suit had a breach on her suit. "Tali…"

She looked at the opening on her arm as she told him, "Oh, this. One of the geth got a lucky shot in. Don't worry, all I have to do is clean the wound, sterilize the area and fix it up. I should be fine. Don't worry too much about it."

Prudii turned away, unable to look at her for the moment, "I'm…sorry…about my reaction with the admirals."

Tali felt a bit embarrassed about it as she grabbed his arm, "Well I think it was good for them. Not many would have the courage to stand up to them like that. Though shooting at Zaal'Koris was a bit extreme."

"Someone was bound to do it. Just if they hit or not." Prudii didn't mind that Tali was holding his arm, though he didn't want any rumor spreading within the ship, "Eh…Tali…"

Tali released her grip on his arm, "Sorry…I…"

Just as they were about to head into engineering, Kenneth was stepping out to grab a bit from mess. There was a bit of an awkward pause between the three before Prudii stepped aside to let Kenneth pass. Tali and Prudii however had a private laugh about it, though their body language might have given it away.

* * *

As the Aran and the others returned to the _Tervho_ the other Mandalorians greeted them with thunderous applause as a few shouted, "Welcome home."

"We knew you'd be alright."

Prath was also among them to help explain, "We were listened in on much of the trial through your comm. channels. We are all just glad Rasen was not convicted as a traitor. And in celebration for this occasion, I believe a job request from the Alliance could help."

Aran smiled, "Lay it on us."

"A cargo ship name the _MSV Broken Arrow_ has stopped transmitting recently. They fear the worse. The cargo ship was delivering munitions to human colonies out on the fringes of the Attican Traverse and the Terminus Systems. They were last heading to a colony located in the Nariph system. Not too far from where we are now."

Aran looked back to the team he had on the _Rayya_ as each one gave him a nod when he turned to them. Aran shouted to the crew, "Well there no time for us to just stand around and look badass, we have a ship to find."

As soon as they were at their stations, the _Tervho_ detached from the _Rayya_'s docking cradle as they moved to the nearby relay.

* * *

**A/N: **Now that that headache is out of the way, we're one step closer to the Collectors. Now there are two reasons why Sigma Squad didn't kill anyone, first they like the quarians, they just don't like Koris, and two all of that anti-terroism and combat training in the Killing House really came in handy.

**Mando'a Translation: **With more Cerberus bugs dead, Prudii might acutally start using Mando'a during missions.

_Oya'kari pirusti_, Prudii(OY-yah-KAR-ee peer-OO-stee proo-DEE)- Hunt well, Prudii.

K'oyacyi!(Koy-AH-shee!)- multiple meaning 1. "Cheers!" 2. Can also mean: "Hang in there" or 3. "Come back safely." Literally, a command; "Stay alive!" Prudii was using #3.


	55. Lost and Found

**A/N: **As I noticed, some of you thought the clones reaction to Koris was a bit extreme. Well you have to see it from their perspective: an Admiral who wishes to make peace with a bunch of droids that drove the quarian people off their planets. I don't know about you, but I think the clones would have a hard time seeing peace as a viable solution with droids, since much of there war is blasting droids. I should have had it back a chapter but I think it's ok here. Also, for anyone interested, I added a small thing back in the 'Cleaning Crew' chapter, a very small thing but it's a Mando'a word. Doubt anyone will go back, personal view.

* * *

The _Normandy _had traveled to the Alpha Draconis System to follow a sudden distress call from the _MSV Hugo Gernsback_ after ten years of unknown absence. Along with Jacob, Shepard requested Mordin and Tali to help assess the situation and aid any survivors. Prudii also was with them, though he had his frustration toward Cerberus, he could respect Jacob for wanting to finally bury old wounds.

EDI reported to the team as the shuttle touched down on what seemed to be a garden world, "I have run a scan of the ship. I detect no life signs, but there may be useful technology or information still inside."

Looking at the crash Jacob noted for the others, "There it is. And mostly intact. They could have survived impact…but it's been years."

Prudii could only think of one of the commando rules from his training, "Definitely a Rule 45."

As they moved closer Tali noticed signs of salvaging nearby, "It looks like it was stripped after the crash. They must have tried to get the beacon up as soon as possible."

The team did a sweep of the ship, finding a few journal entries that made little sense. After their investigation of the ship, they found the beacon and the VI active as well, "Repeat: Toxicology Alert: Danger of rapid neural decay. Local flora chemically incompatible with human physiology. Override: Beacon resumed. Pause time, eight years, 237 days, seven hours."

Shepard took a closer look at the beacon, "From the look of it, this beacon's been here awhile. Why would they wait years to signal?"

The VI continued on with its report, "Pause in beacon protocol, eight years, 237 days, seven hours. Pause I recorded as: RECORD DELETED by Acting Captain Ronald Taylor."

"That's not right. My father was first officer," believing the VI was malfunctioning after being left out for so long.

"Ronald Taylor was promoted under emergency command protocols. Other flagged issues: Unsafe deceleration. Local food and neural decay. Beacon activation protocols."

Shepard turned back to the VI, "Why wasn't the beacon activated before now?"

"This emergency beacon became functional after 358 days, 12 hours, following the unscheduled suborbital decent of the _Hugo Gernsback_. Activation was triggered remotely after eight years, 237 days, seven hours, on the authority of acting captain Ronald Taylor."

Mordin made his own inquisition, "VI, elaborate. Local food impairs brain functions. List all known effects and symptoms."

"Impairment of mental function due to chemical imbalance begins within seven days of ingesting local flora, regardless of decontamination or preparation. Impact on higher cognitive abilities and long-term memory is cumulative, but significant within a standard month. It is not known if neural decay is permanent. Data collection was not completed."

Prudii didn't see why they had to eat the plants, "Can't the survivors eat the fauna instead."

Mordin quickly informed the commando, "No. Flora will affect fauna development. Flora has developed chemical defense. Wildlife must adapt to defenses. Bacterial symbiosis. Even natural immunities. Any number of evolutionary solutions. None of which humans have. Would still affect them regardless."

Shepard had all he wanted from the VI unit. He signaled to the team, "Come on, let's get going."

Jacob was having doubts as to the activation of the beacon, "My father had a working beacon but didn't signal for almost nine years. Maybe…that neural decay affected him."

"After ten years. It must have."

As the team moved up along the shoreline they spotted more crates and salvage until Prudii saw movement and warned the others. A woman came out of hiding as she seemed rather excited to have seen their shuttle landing, "You came? From the sky? The leader said someone would come! He delayed for so long, but he still has power! Some have lost faith. The hunters! They will have seen your star. They will not let you help him."

No one was able to make sense of the woman's words. Shepard tried to ask her again, "What are you talking about? You're not making sense."

The woman tried to calm herself down, "I—I, uh…I don't remember how to say it." As she remembered, it sounded as though someone taught her to recite it like a parrot, "He's our leader, and we serve so…we can go home. But some want to fight him. They wereâ€"they were cast out." Prudii spotted more movement off in the distance as he moved himself between the woman and the new presence. "He exiled them, so they hunt his machines and those who help him. They don't believeâ€""

"Get down!" Prudii grabbed the woman and dove for the crates as the new man opened fire with a pistol.

The team also did the same, grabbing their weapons as the woman told the team, "Hunters! They won't stop until the leader is dead!"

"Kill them! Agents of the liar! He will not escape!"

Before Jacob was able to attack the hunters, Shepard grabbed his shoulder, "Wait! They're part of the crew."

"And what do you want us to do? They're trying to kill us."

Prudii noticed the weapon before he took cover, "The pistol looked like a Kessler."

"A Kessler? Are you sure about that?"

Prudii didn't need to look back as he nodded to Shepard, "They crashed ten years ago. They're using the old heat sink system. So when you run out of ammo, you're screwed. They just have to wait for the cool down."

Shepard remembered Prudii's argument with Rang, "Think we can subdue them?"

"If we can distract or disarm them." Prudii took a look to see the numbers and relative distance from one to another, "I'd probably only be able to grab one or two at a time."

Shepard turned to the squad, "No kill shots. Shot to disarm or scare only."

Prudii handed a number of zip ties to the others as they thought of ways of disarming the hunters. When the team was ready, Tali deployed her combat drone as a distraction. Prudii activated his stealth systems as he moved out of cover with a few zip ties in hand. He took a better look at the weapons the hunters had in hand to assess how many shots each weapon had before they had to cool down. Judging by their design, color and details, Prudii determined they were all Hahne-Kedar models; the Lancer AR, the Storm shotgun and Kessler pistol. Most of the hunters were still packed further back from the group but some of them seemed ready to close that gap.

Prudii was now opposite to one of the hunters that was using a crate for cover. Prudii grabbed the man by his shirt collar as he tugged him over the crate just before his stealth shut down. The commando promptly kicked the pistol out of his hand and retrained his arms behind his back. Mordin signaled to Prudii as he sent off a Cryo Blast that quickly froze a hunter's shotgun before shattering into tiny pieces. With that Prudii smack the disarmed man in the head as he dragged both men back with him to the others and when they were safe, he promptly knocked the other man out as he restrained the second. "Two down. Another eight to go."

* * *

As the Mandalorian ship entered the Pylos Nebula, sensors immediately detected a ship on a decaying orbit around the gas giant Jonus. With the current trajectory and orbital decay, the projected crash would take place in about eight minutes, factoring in the time it would take for them to reach the ship. The expected crash site would be Fargone, the largest human colony in the system. Kix and Bev had to match the ship's velocity as they attempted to latch onto the ship. "I don't know how long this old bird can take."

"Come on Kix, we recently outfitted her with new hull plating. I think the _Tervho_ can take the heat."

"That's not the heat I'm worried about."

Aran took Rang, Rasen and Aay'han as team one, and if need he'd call in reinforcements from Vren, Forta and Lissarkh. Immediately as they enter the ship they find bodies of the crew, and a datapad from the captain, Thomas Jonner.

Rang had learned how to quickly skim through text to find what they needed, especially with jobs on a strict time limit. "Not good. We've got geth on the ship. Looks like they wanted the weapons or to stop the supplies but captain here ordered what was left of the crew to evac while he killed navigation and planned to scuttle her. Unfortunately it looks like the geth were able to determine where she crashed so I really think we should huff it."

Aay'han immediately got to work placing a breach charge on the door's magnetic lock as the others moved into formation beside the door. With the charge set, Aay'han quickly moved to his right to join Rasen just before the charge went off and Rang tossed a droid popper into the room. Waiting for the distinct pop and fizzle of electrical system, the clones and Rasen entered the room and quickly took down the three geth.

Rasen moved to examine the active terminal to get a sense of how bad the ship was. "We need to reactivate the ship's engine if we want a chance of saving her."

"Oh, so this ship is a 'her'."

Rasen knew if she just motioned her arm just right, she could make him flinch, of which she did with a raise of her right arm with a closed fist. Aran knew they needed more help now. "Team two, move in."

Vren had lead as he was carrying the Z-6 rotary blaster cannon and he couldn't help but notice all of the dead security on the floor. "Looks like we missed the party."

Rang pointed out to the glass, "Nah, party's just getting started."

Rasen unlocked the engine room's emergency seal as Forta investigated the engine room. He found the controls to restarting one of the power couplings, but just as he was about to go for it, geth started appearing on the balcony above. Forta quickly grabbed cover behind the crates just before Vren walked through and unloaded with the Z-6.

The weapon was laying down suppressing fire to keep the geth down as Aran and Aay'han picked off the others. Lissarkh drew her lightsaber as she escorted Rasen alongside Rang. Forta finished reactivating the first power coupling at the same time Rasen started to restart the second one. The geth were starting to get serious as rocket troopers started to appear. Vren had to dive for cover as a rocket careened past him, otherwise it would have smashed into his helmet. Forta quickly killed the rocket trooper on their side with an Overload tech followed by two shots from his pistol.

Rang tossed a frag grenade at their group allowing the Jedi to toss her lightsaber to slice the two geth in half. With the second power coupling active again, Rasen ran for the engine controls while the others continued to slay geth and occupy their attention. With a swift override of the system, Rasen reactivated the ship's engines and immediately contacted the pilots, "OK guys, you should be able to stabilize her flight now."

Bev and Kix had to activate the secondary dock arms to grab on to the _Broken Arrow_ to alter her flight. They had to put the _Tervho_'s engines to the limit but they were able to pull the cargo ship into a stable orbit around the colony. As the team finished mopping up the last of the geth, Rang openly declared, "Now this is how you end a day! Blasting clankers and saving an entire colony from doom."

* * *

Prudii was behind the last hunter before delivering a nerve blow to his back that rendered the man unconscious and restrained him. Tali expressed her disbelief of the situation as the VI had explained, "These people didn't have 'neural decay.' They're just crazy."

"My father wouldn't let this go on. Something is very wrong."

With the men secured and immobile Jacob scouted ahead of the others and found the remains of a damaged LOKI mech and reported, "Stripped for parts. Tech's wearing out. Those hunters must be laying on the pressure."

The team quickly gathered together, climbing the grade they found an archway overlooking a campsite. "Looks like a settlement."

As the team got closer, Mordin scanned a few of them with his omni-tool, "Clearly docile. Same uniform remnants as those who attacked, however."

But Shepard and Prudii quickly noticed something different, "There aren't any men here. Maybe it affects genders differently? Makes males get violent?"

Mordin wasn't as sure about that. "Previous female said hunters were exiled. Behavioral or gender-driven?"

Some of the women came to investigate the group as Jacob finished looking over one of the containers and rejoined Shepard, "It doesn't matter right now. One of these people must know what my father has to do with this!"

As soon as Jacob came into the light the other women became scared, "You have his face! He promised to call the sky, but he sends nothing."

"He forced us to eat, to…decay. You are cursed with his face!"

Shepard wasn't expecting that from the crew. "Not the best reaction to the family resemblance, Jacob."

"Why would my father force his crew to eat toxic food? Whatever's happening here needs to stop."

Prudii had found one of the food stores salvaged from the ship. "Doesn't seem like they refrigeration units survived the crash. To think they've had to eat the local food for years now. No telling if the captain is still sane himself."

Looking at the strange monument, Jacob was disgusted by the sight, "What the hell? Somebody had to push them to make that. That's borderline…worship."

Traveling through the camp, Tali spotted two LOKI mech and a woman cowering before them. The mechs detected the team and warned before opening, "Your captain demands obedience. Weapons are forbidden."

Tali drained the first LOKI mech of energy as Jacob lifted one using his biotics. Prudii switched his DC-17m for his pistol and shot of the arms of the last LOKI before firing one last shot through the faceplate.

Tali was astonished, "He's gunning down his own crew to keep control? That's horrible!"

"Well that would make them hate him. But maybe it was just for defense." Jacob was in partial denial of his father just as Tali not too long ago.

As the team checked on the woman, she also noticed Jacob, "You…have his face…but you fight his…machines." She had a datapad in her hand and it to Jacob, "You might stop this. This…I forget how to…read, but this…was the start. What he promised, and what they did to us. We need the sky. Take us back to the sky."

Jacob began reading through the information as Prudii reminded him, "We can't read it if you're looking at it."

Jacob seemed captured by the datapad as he answered, "It's a crew logbook. Some of them thought the beacon repair was taking too long. They were afraid they'd run out of supplies and lose their minds to the decay. My father restricted the ship food for himself and the other officers so they wouldn't be affected. Everybody else had to eat the toxic food and hope for treatment later. The rest is a casualty list. A few mutinied over the decision. My father and the other officers turned the mechs on them."

Shepard had seen it happen before, though not exactly in this fashion, "He wasn't command material, and it got to him. Couldn't keep the crew in line without violence."

Jacob pulled up detailed accounts, "It didn't stop there. More incidents, harsh punishments. It's like they're cattle. Or toys. In a year, all the male crew members are flagged as 'exiled' or dead. They separated out the women. Assigned them to officers like pets. And after the beacon is fixed, the officers appear in the casualties, too. After! My father took control and didn't stop it."

Shepard was more concerned about the remaining crew, "Anything in there about whether the effects of the toxic food can be treated?

Jacob searched the datapad for a moment, "Nothing. But it seems like the right call. If everyone gets it, who's left to fix the beacon? You'd never get out. But they did fix it. And the signal wasn't sent until now. I'm starting to see why."

Prudii had his own question, "So he killed the other officer?"

Jacob looked through the logs, "There were five after the crash: medical, engineering, bridge staff. Should've had no problem fixing the beacon and keeping people safe. All killed within the same weekâ€"about a month after the beacon was repaired."

"Does it say why he separated the men and women? Or is it as bad as it seems?" Shepard inquired with a disgusted tone.

"No, it turns to gibberish. Maybe the men got violent early on, but from the state of this place, I'd say the hunter thing is recent. What he allowed here, Shepard…I don't see any justification."

Shepard could only see one reason for this, "It's looking like he only activated the beacon because the men have come back ready to fight."

Jacob agreed, "He let this happen, and now it's biting him in the ass. Nine years. Why didn't he set it right? I need to find this man."

Shepard turned to the doctor, "Mordin. Think you could help these people?"

Mordin activated his omni-tool, "Hmm…interesting challenge. Will do everything available."

Mordin walked back to the camp as Tali overloaded the remains of one of the LOKI mechs to clear debris blocking their path. It seemed the acting captain was still monitoring the situation as his voice came through over a PA. "This is Captain Ronald Taylor. Thank god you're here! My crew went insane. I only just got free!"

Jacob punched his fist against the rock wall, "Goddamnit. It's really him. Just got free? He's covering his ass."

Prudii found a pile of bodies left out to rot in the sun. "Disgraceful. These older bodies were executed and posed as examples. It worked for a time, but these fresh corpses were left where they fell."

Jacob could see where the new bodies were from, "The hunters started fighting back."

Up the hill Shepard was shot at by a LOKI mech. The team moved to cover as Ronald noticed the activity. "Careful. I automated my defenses after the crew turned violent. They kept attacking! I had no choice."

Jacob pulled one of the mechs toward him as he blasted it, "He had plenty of choices. Little late to blame his victims."

Prudii took out the head of another LOKI as he mentioned, "Well at least we don't have to hold back against droids."

* * *

**A/N: **Just like the Collector ship, Shepard went planet side thinking they would be burying bodies and salvaging equipment; at best they might find a camp with a handful of survivors. I really didn't like the fact that we had to kill the hunters. They were part of the Gernsback's crew. I know, I know, gameplay mechanics and blah, blah. But in real life I think they might have tried to find a way to 'capture' the hunters instead. And I used the side mission to help speed things along.

**Mando'a Translation: **Damn the limited dictionary. Otherwise Rang would have a field day more often.


	56. Captain's former paradise

**A/N: **Yet another special double update, only because I couldn't fit the mission into one chapter. So go back a chapter if the titles don't also help as well.

* * *

The team easily dispatched with first group of LOKIs as a new group activated behind the scattered salvage. The LOKIs were in a very basic formation. Two moved around from the left as another two moved in from the right. Tali hacked the IFF protocols of one LOKI as the other turned on it. With this opening the squad focused on eliminating the other mechs. Jacob shot at the last hostile mech, able to eliminate it with his shotgun as Prudii closed the gap and gutted the machine Tali had hacked.

Before things could calm down more LOKI mechs started to enter the small valley. The LOKIs were walking in single file, in groups of threes. The mechs were easy pickings for the team as they gunned the LOKIs down one by one. With the last of the new mechs downed, Ronald tried to explain himself again, "I had to keep them busy, distracted, but it's getting dangerous. Thank god you've come!"

"He had his fun, and now he wants out. Son of a bitch." Prudii and Shepard both could see the rage building up inside of Jacob toward his father. Shepard wished to help Jacob overcome this rage whereas Prudii was ready to help execute the Acting Captain.

The path opened up to the ocean again before they found a makeshift defensive barrier and five LOKI mechs at the 'gate'. Prudii sniped the head of the lead LOKI with his Widow. The resulting explosion that soon followed knocked down the other mechs. During this vulnerable moment, the team eliminated three more LOKI mechs before the other two were back on their feet.

The explosion from their fellow mech damaged the two as they started to open fire on the group. Tali drained the power cells out of the second LOKI as Jacob grabbed the other in a biotic Pull allowing Shepard and Prudii finished it in the air.

"It took years to train my guards. I'm afraid you'll have to fight them to rescue me."

Ronald's pleas were falling on deaf ears as Jacob yelled, "Throwing people away. This…thing…is not my father."

Shepard grabbed Prudii for a moment, "Think we could capture his guards alive like the hunters?"

Prudii grabbed one of his recon droids from his pack and activated it. The little droid quickly went to work as it hovered several meters above the camp site and started to feed the images into Prudii's HUD. "There are only four guards. One in actual combat armor. The problem's going to be when the YMIR activates. Not much room to maneuver as a squad and the cover sucks."

Shepard turned to Prudii again, "If we're lucky, than Captain Taylor trained his guards to remain at their post. Think you can force them to activate the YMIR and lure it back here?"

Prudii looked back at the field's layout and where cover was relative to the guards and the heavy mech. "I can manage." Shepard nodded as he signaled the others to take cover behind the walls outside the compound. Prudii quietly moved up through the gate and to a wall erected to prevent the hunters from having a straight run through their defenses. Prudii activated his tactical cloak as he moved to crates to his right, underneath a small cluster of trees. He now had a clear shot at the YMIR. Prudii waited for the tech to cool down as he readied his bowcaster.

Prudii activated his cloak again and fired on the YMIR. The guards immediately started to shot at Prudii as the YMIR activated. With that, Prudii ran back to the entrance as he waited for the YMIR to continue the chase. The mech did as was expected and moved to exterminate the commando. Prudii fell back into a corner with spare parts yet something unexpected happened. It seemed Ronald Taylor programmed the YMIR to remain within a certain perimeter so it wouldn't fall victim to such a trap, but the YMIR continued to fire at Prudii with its machine gun and rockets despite the angle which protected the clone.

Shepard and the others drew its attention away from the commando and started to chip away at its defenses. The YMIR loaded its left arm as it target Shepard and fired its rocket. As the YMIR was switching his weapons back to its right arm's machine gun, Prudii took aim with his bowcaster as he charged the shot. He waited for the mech to unload a few round out of its twin cannons and heat up the arm. Prudii fired and took off the arm in mid attack. The YMIR detected the loss of its arm forcing it to rely on its missile launcher alone. The YMIR was helpless to do anything against so many opponents at the same time without its twin cannon. With teamwork they dispatched with the mech leaving only the guards between them and Ronald Taylor.

Shepard and the squad gather behind the wall as Prudii drew out the enemy positions and cover in the dirt. "The one in armor is on top. These three don't have armor, just their jumpsuits. Doubt the latter have shields."

Prudii was right, the cover was terrible. The two crates to their flanks were rather flimsy and seemed ready to be collapse. Shepard had an idea on how to keep them alive, "Jacob, how far do you think you can pull them toward us."

Jacob wasn't sure the relevance of the matter. "It should be more than half way. Why?"

Shepard didn't respond as he turned to Tali, "Get ready to deploy your combat drone. Prudii you ready?"

The commando got the idea and nodded as he swung his bowcaster to his back. Shepard signaled Tali as Chiktikka buzzed off to distract the guards. With their attention on the fast combat drone, Jacob grabbed one of the guards with his biotics. As the man few toward them Prudii followed the man's path as his recon droid continued to monitor the activity of the other guards and the hunters gathering not too far behind them. As the guard fell to the ground, Prudii grabbed the man and used the momentum to get to cover as he pinned him to the ground and strapped his arms together behind his back. Jacob grabbed the other two guards as Prudii caught them, knocked them out and bond them. With only the shielded guard left, Prudii activated his cloak as he moved around to flank him while the others kept the guard distracted. Prudii was now back at the position he was when he lured out the YMIR mech. Prudii activated his tactical cloak again as he quickly moved to the guard just as the man was taking cover from a volley of shots from Shepard. Prudii smacked the pistol out of the man's hands and dodged a right hook. Prudii grabbed the man and delivered a Keldabe Kiss to the man's forehead, knocking him unconscious.

As Prudii finished tying the man up and his droid returned to his pack, Shepard, Jacob and Tali grabbed the other guards. This fight did nothing to help temper Jacob unfortunately. "Enough with the toys. I need to look my father in the eye and hear him justify this."

After checking the area out one last time, Jacob opened the door and the path lead to a man-made fort at the edge of the sea cliff. The team sat the guards down at the table as they chat with Mr. Taylor. He continued his charade, oblivious that they fully aware of the truth. "You're here! I knew a real squad would blow through just fine. Sorry if the mechs scuffed your pads." Shepard looked out to the sea as Taylor tried to buy them over, "I'll get you something nice when we get back to Alliance space. I've got to have some back-pay coming."

Jacob questioned his father who still ignorant as to who he really was, "What about your crew, Acting Captain?"

"Total loss. The toxic food turned them wild. They propped me up here in some kind of ritual behavior. Waiting for a chance to signal has been hell."

Tali and Prudii were both disgusted by his willingness to leave the others in such a state and on this planet, but they remained silent for now. Jacob was simply vocal about it, "That's the best you can do?"

Ronald turned to Shepard, thinking they were Alliance soldiers, "You let all your people talk back like that…uh…who are you, exactly?" finally noticing the quarian and Prudii's unusual armor and weapons.

Shepard turned around as he made the introductions, "Commander Shepard of the Normandy. I believe you are acquainted with Mr. Taylor."

"Taylor?" Ronald turned around as he looked into his eyes, "Jacob? No, not Jacob."

"Why not me? Would ten years of this look better to anyone else in the galaxy?"

"You have to understand. This isn't me. The realities of command, they change you. I wasn't ready for that. I made sure you were taught right. Before I left. I had hoped to leave it at that."

Prudii wasn't willing to accept Taylor's excuse and he didn't care if Shepard agreed. "Sithspit! You were Acting Captain. You're responsible. You're orders."

Jacob was only further aggravated by Prudii's out lash of the truth. "What was that moment? I want to know that there was an actual reason."

Shepard noticed a man as he staggered his way closer to the camp as Taylor tried to explain his actions, to both them and himself. "There was resistance to the plan. Mutiny. We had to take a hard line to keep order. And things settled down. As the decay set in we made sure the crew were comfortable. Some even seemed happier. Ignorance is bliss, right? And they were grateful for guidance, like an instinct. Pure authority was…easy. At first." Soon more hunters started to gather, finding the lack of defenses to the acting captain as Prudii openly stared them down. "Months in the effect lowered inhibitions. They got territorial. Rank, protocol they couldn't understand." Shepard signaled to Tali and Prudii to keep an eye on their new company as Ronald continued. "We had to establish dominance. After a while the perks seemed…normal."

Jacob was expecting some life altering explanation but instead he got this, "That's it? You created a harem and played king? Ten years in a juvenile fantasy?"

"I can't point to where it all went wrong. But when the beacon was ready, revealing what happened didn't seem like a good idea."

Shepard had a few points that needed clearing up, "What happened to the other officers?"

Ronald didn't seem to have trouble remembering that, "Anders found his conscience a little late to step back. He had an accident. Things got…tense. End of the day, I was the one with the mechs. I got a little basic in setting examples, but I was kind to my people once things settled down. Seemed like I'd earned some peace."

Jacob still couldn't see the justification for it, "You fought over people like they were toys. Things."

Tali pointed out, as Prudii continued to keep the hunters back, "Eventually you'd be forced to eat the local food yourself. The food couldn't last forever."

Ronald quickly noted, "Dining for one can really stretch things out. Besides, I can think of a lot worse retirement plans than stripping down and joining the droolers. That was before the hunters, of course. Dumb or not, I'd feel it if they got their hands on me now. They want blood. I'd prefer to keep it."

Jacob couldn't help but see a pattering with his father, "It's all about you. Everything."

Shepard activated his comm to Mordin in the hopes that Captain Taylor may have more insight as to what has happened to the crew. "What triggered the males to change and threaten you?"

Ronald turned back to the sea and the various plants around his camp, "This planet has some strange cycles to it. I've seen some plants around I never saw before, odd weather. Maybe some just adapted a little too well."

"And if you treat them like animals—big shock—they become animals."

Prudii finally had enough, turning to the acting captain, "What about your son? You didn't want to leave for his sake?"

Ronald however was more than confident he did the right thing when it came to Jacob. "I gave him a good start. He was a smart kid and was better off not following me. We figured that out a long time before I took jobs in deep space. And things escalated here, it seemed best to just disappear off the galactic map."

"Until you needed someone to save your ass."

Shepard tried to temper Prudii and Jacob, "We can help these people. Cerberus can have ships here in days and pull everyone out."

Jacob grabbed his pistol and drew it on his father's head, "He's not worth the fuel to haul him out, or the air he's breathing. He's damned lucky I don't even think he's worth pulling the trigger." Jacob finally lowered his pistol as he scolded, "I don't know who you are. Because you're not any father I remember."

Shepard stepped in before Jacob, or more likely Prudii, did anything they might regret. "We'll secure him for an Alliance court. For every year here, he'll have ten to think about it." With Shepard's decision Tali and Prudii held the hunters at gun point to keep them at bay.

Jacob couldn't care less about throwing him into the brig. "Give him all the time in the galaxy. The man who did this doesn't know right from wrong."

"I'm sorry, Jacob. I did the best I could." Ronald knew it was probably pointless, but he didn't want his own son to leave on this note.

Jacob was already walking away from his father, upset at everything he had done. "I'm ten years past believing that."

* * *

With the hunters, Ronald Taylor and his guards secured for Alliance ships, Shepard's team left the planet. Tali had to confess to her Mandalorian 'protector' her fears earlier. "For a moment back on the planet, I thought you were going to kill Jacob's father."

"I was tempted. What he did to his crew…normally I'd defer to Aran or the General for these kinds of decisions. If he was a Mandalorian he'd already be dead. But he's the Alliance's problem now. Earth courts will decide his fate," Though he quickly realized his poor choice of words.

Prudii was half expecting Tali to react to him in similar fashion as how Rasen treats Rang when he tries to use one of those nicknames. Instead Tali seemed rather focused on her work on the Normandy's engines, more so than usual. "Keelah! Why are you doing this you bosh'tet?"

Prudii noticed something off in her speech. "Tali? Are you alright?" Prudii then noticed her attempts at hiding her arm from him, "It's the breach you got form the Alarei, isn't it?"

Tali finally turned to the clone, "Yes. Now I've got a fever and I'm taking it out on the poor drive core. Don't worry I…"

"You'll be fine in about a day or so, right?" remembering a time when Tare got sick from a similar situation after one of the early extermination jobs offered to the Mandalorians.

Tali laughed a little, "Right. Sometimes I forget Tare and Rasen are with you and your brothers. I disinfected properly, but one of the section-seals had taken some damage, and foreign matter got out of the disinfected zone. It was a stupid mistake. You always check your seals before doing local treatment. Unless you forget. Then you get a damn fever."

"I've…lived a similar life to how you quarians live," Prudii started to gaze upon his own arm, "Always in in this armor. Rarely apart from it. Unlike many of my brothers."

"But you have the option of removing it. Why wouldn't you?"

Prudii wasn't entirely sure of the answer himself. "Sometimes without this armor I feel…exposed." Prudii started to reminisce on his past, "I was trained from birth to be a fighter, a soldier. These past two years we've lived for our own choices. And I choice to continue wearing this armor of mine, even while on our ship."

Tali wasn't sure any would truly understand. "That sounds a lot like how we are. Always in these suits of ours, even among family. We can link their suit's environments between individuals. We get sick at first, and then we adapt. It is our most important gesture of trust, of acceptance. I haven't trusted anyone enough for that, though. Except…well, no quarians. Um. You know what I mean."

Prudii stared into her mask as he saw her true face, "Tali, you're blushing."

Tali quickly tried to disprove him as she shook her head, "What? No! It's the fever! It's just that the tradition is also signifies a willingness for, um, intimacy." Tali started to feel even more embarrassed by the second, "I wasn't trying to…It's not always like that. It's more…How did we even end up talking about this? Wait…you can see my face?"

Prudii simply shrugged, "I don't see why that's impressive. The only hard one was Gerrel's mask, but I could still see his face."

Tali was really hoping he wasn't lying, "Prudii, no one is normally able to see past our masks, and you say you can see my face like Gabby or Shepard?"

Prudii nodded to her, "I'm not sure about the color, but yes. All of the facial features behind the visor are as clear as day to me."

Tali never anticipated hearing anyone say such a thing in her life. "I…I'm really glad to have met you and your brothers."

Prudii agreed, "It's been…interesting." There was a brief pause between the two until Prudii finally broke the silence as he told her directly, "_Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum_."

Tali recognized part of it, "Rang said two of those words when we were racing to stop Saren on the Citadel. What does that mean exactly?"

"I'll tell you someday. Though, I think you have some idea already." Prudii then leaned against the railing again as everything returned to something of a norm.

* * *

**A/N: **Grunt, Jack, Samara, and Mordin mission are left, but Prudii really doesn't need to go to theirs. So I'll have the Mandalorians do a few things to help skip the time. Hopefully in the next chapter we'll be going to the Derelict Reaper.

**Mando'a Translation: **

Keldabe Kiss- mirshmure'cya(meersh-moor-AY-shah) or kov'nyn(KOHV-neen); Sorry this one's a bit of a reverse translation from the my norm, but more or less its a headbutt if you couldn't tell. Just leaving the Mando'a versions here for those who were interested.

Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum.(nee kar-TILE garh dah-RAH-soom)- colloquial: "I love you." (lit: "I know you forever.")


	57. Longing

**A/N: **Happy Valentine's Day people and I must also say a temporary goodbye. As some of you may be aware of, the Mass Effect 3 demo has been released to all, and for those few fortunate enough, the multiplayer as well. I'll try to keep going but I'm going to be spending alot of my time either working or playing the demo. And since I've lost access to a computer again, it'll be a long one.

* * *

It's been three days since the Mandalorians saved the colony Fargone, and the others have started to appreciate the 'new' guys. Rasen has even started to tolerate C3's presence, even on rarer occasions treating her as one of the crew. The engineers have theorized a means of integrate the ARC-170's hyperdrive into a ship with a drive core, but given the rare metals used in the hyperdrive's connectors and how some of the technology behind it's design had not been developed yet they would only be able to integrate the hyperdrive into one ship.

Two of the crew were discussing about the Jedi onboard, "I still don't see why she doesn't want to become a Mandalorian? I mean shouldn't she have to?"

"Hey man, this is Aran's ship. He makes the rules. But truthfully, I'm not sure what's going on with that. Maybe it's out of respect to her from their past or something."

Aay'han had overheard the discussion only because he was with Dagger and Swoop who wanted to learn more about flying the _Tervho_. He corrected the two, "It's because she's probably one of the few Jedi left alive. Order 66 was a Republic wide order to every clone commander to remove the Jedi from the chain of command, by lethal force. I doubt many saw it coming. I think she wishes to continue her Jedi traditions until the end. She knows she'll probably never find another who could understand the connection to the Force or pass on the training she's learned over the years, but that doesn't mean she'll stop being what she always has been; a guardian for those who are in need. Don't ever bring that subject up again, or to her." With his warning, Aay'han left to check on Rang and his newest experiment on the Collector corpses.

As Aay'han walked past the CIC, the elevator opened with Vren moving toward Aran. "We need to talk."

Aran wasn't expecting to see Vren out of the crew deck unless he was preparing for a job. "What's the matter Vren?"

"I've been speaking with the others, Jorgal and Drok. I think it about time to join a clan. A krogan clan."

Aran didn't need to ask why or what for. He started to sift through old emails, looking for something. He found an old message that they had kept over their mercenary career. "Before we rounded you guys up a krogan bounty hunter helped pay for something personal. We paid him back with interest and he gave us a way to visit him on the krogan homeworld."

Vren agreed, "Add that the ship is turian made many on Tuchanka would gladly shot us down the moment we were in their range. I'm not surprised he wanted to make sure you survived the visit. What clan is he a part of?"

"He's Urdnot."

Vren had been keeping his ear to the ground on things from Tuchanka. "Urdnot. That clan has gained much power these recent years. A lot of alliances. Your friend must have a reason to go back."

"Not sure. But we're not too far from the planet. We could go there and see if our friend can help you."

Vren agreed, "Alright. Though I don't think he'll be able to do anything if he can't persuade the clan leader."

* * *

Vren had advised them to fly the gunship down to show their power. A means to say they weren't pushovers. Even before breaking through the atmosphere Swoop could detect the radiation from the planet. "Holy Sith! Are you seeing this, Dagger?"

"Yeah. The sensors can pick up the radiation from here. And we haven't broken through the atmosphere yet."

Vren shouted, "Just keep flying to the Urdnot camp. Don't let any krogan think you're weak. Most hate aliens because they think they're too smooth. I'm not sure our reputation will help us here, so keep sharp."

Rang confidently boasted, "Well if their anything like the Blood Pack, I think we'll do fine."

The entrance to the camp was through an old decommissioned underground missile silo. At the bottom of the silo, three krogan warriors were waiting as the gunship touched down. The door opened and the clones all walked out with Lissarkh watching the krogans. Two of the warriors readied their shotguns as the lead evaluated the group. "You supposed to be the Mandalorians?"

Rang was ready to piss him off, but Aran stepped forward, "We are. Are we expected?"

The krogan's face cringed as he told them, "The clan leader wants to speak with you. Don't do anything stupid." Vren walked out of the ship with the Z-6 strapped to his back. He was noticed by the other krogans as they took aim with their weapons. "Is this one here to finally return to the dust?"

Vren fought back against the krogan, "I don't need to speak with you grunts."

The two krogans stared one another down until Aran ended it before violence could erupt. "Come on. Let's meet with this clan leader."

The team continued on into the Urdnot camp, passing several warriors along the narrow passage. They tried to speak with the clan leader, but two krogans stopped them. "Halt! You must wait till the clan leader summons you. He is…in talks."

"With the death of Gatatog Uvenk, and the destruction of Clan Weyrloc, I believe this alliance you propose with Nakmor will prove to be rather viable. For both clans."

The clan leader was sitting on a stone throne as he agreed, "Well don't take too long to decide. I'm sure the Gatatogs might try to do something stupid."

"That would be an interesting fight." The Nakmor ambassador and his guards walked away from the clan leader, crossing paths with the Mandalorians.

With the Nakmor gone, the guards let them pass to speak with the Urdnot clan leader. Rang opened his mouth with his usual perkiness, "From merc to king, huh? How's it feel Wrex?"

The scared krogan let out a small chuckle, "Honestly, I didn't think I'd come back. But after Shepard destroyed Saren's genophage cure and you guys paid me back, I finally decided to continue my efforts to unite the clans."

"You're the Urdnot from before, aren't you?"

Wrex got out of his throne and moved closer to Vren. "Have we met somewhere?"

"Not face to face. I am Torg Vren. The only member from my clan that supported your ideals when you first brought them up, Wrex."

Wrex had to think back a few centuries about those days. "I remember you now. You were the only levelheaded one from that clan, before it returned to the dust. I'm assuming you're here because you wanted to join a clan now."

Vren lowered his head, "I've been stuck on Omega for a few decades. These four reminded me what it means to be a krogan again. I'm ready for whatever trail I must face."

Wrex gazed upon Vren's armor, then he turned back to his throne. "There'll be no need. The tales of the Mandalorians have spread, even to Tuchanka. Every job you've ever accepted has always been completed and you've never lose a single member of your team. I don't know too many merc groups that can claim that. After letting that tank-born into the clan, I don't see the others objecting to you."

"You let a tank-born take the Rite?"

Wrex nodded, "Normally I wouldn't even think of it. But he was created by Okeer, and he with Shepard. That was the important part. He passed his Rite, and killed the Thresher Maw."

Vren recalled seeing a young krogan with Shepard on Horizon, amazed he couldn't tell the difference. "So that young blood was a clone…and he killed the Maw."

Aran turned to his friend, "Do you still want in, Vren?"

Vren looked to the other Urdnot members around the area and reflected on those from his own clan. "Yes. I want to be a true krogan again. Not just in name, but in body and spirit."

"Very well. You should speak with the shaman to learn what you have to do."

* * *

Shepard had returned to Omega to help Samara with finding the Ardat-Yakshi fugitive. While the Commander was gone, Prudii took this time to catch some Z's. Ken quietly moved closer to Prudii. Gabby tried to stop him, "Kenneth! What are you doing?"

"I want to take a closer look at that crossbow on him."

"Kenneth, are you insane!"

"Don't sweat it Gabby. Besides, I think he's sleeping."

There were few inches between his finger and Prudii's weapon before a voice yelled, "Touch it and lose the arm." Kenn pulled his arm back, fearful that he would keep his word. Kenn quickly regained his courage, or idiocy, to test Prudii as he reached out with his leg to see if it was just a recording set to trigger by proximity. "You're leg is less valuable to you?" Prudii's head finally turned to Kenn's head as the visor glared down at him.

Kenn returned to his station as Prudii turned his head back. After things settling down again, Tali finally tugged on Prudii's arm. "Prudii, I'd like to speak with you. In private." Prudii nodded as the two walked off toward the Normandy's drive core. "I've been thinking about the last time we talked. I…I think we shouldn't continue…we should forget about this…" grabbing a hold of his hand.

Prudii grabbed her hand before she could let go, "Is it because of Shepard? Or the mission?"

"No, I…well it does a little…but…I'm sorry. I'm being stupid. And selfish."

Prudii couldn't have disagreed with her more, "Never. You've always thought about the Migrant Fleet. I've never seen you put yourself before others, unless it was to take a few shots. Mandalorians understand this. But we also understand everyone needs things for themselves sometimes."

Tali could see that, but she remembered how well their ship was compared to those of the Flotilla. "Prudii, we can't just…We have to think of other people. Always. If we don't think about the needs of the whole crew, people could get hurt. Maybe even killed." Tali turned away for a moment to think of the words, "You deserve to…be happy with someone. I can't do that. No matter how much I…I could get sick. Jeopardize the mission."

Prudii looked to the drive core as he asked her, "What if there was no mission? No one else to worry about?"

"If it were just me?" Tali wasn't sure, "Two years ago you and your brothers appeared out of nowhere through the Conduit after us. And all of you were more than willing to help us without question. You didn't care who the enemy was, you all threw yourselves into the flames without regret. You grabbed me and threw me back up as the platform on the Citadel fell and told your brothers not to interfere. I watched you fight against the resurrected Saren and as the debris from Sovereign crashed through. I watched you fight against everything the galaxy threw at you. I've watched you for so long…and I never imagined you'd ever see past…this," gliding her fingers against her mask.

Prudii wanted to make sure he wasn't going to regret it if they did continue. "Tali, are you saying you could die if we…"

"It's always a risk. Maybe the reaction would be minor. Maybe it would put me down for a few weeks. Or maybe it would kill me. But…That's not what I'm concerned about, Prudii. I don't want you distracted. I don't want what I want to hurt this mission. It's too important."

Prudii closed his eyes for a moment as he finally let his heart tell him what to do. "Tali," grabbing her hands, "I've never been distracted by you. My mind has never been clearer. I want to be with you. And I'll do whatever it takes."

Tali had mentally prepared for thing to end different, "I…I wouldn't blame you if…but…Oh. Thank you," as her mind finally accepted what Prudii had said, "You don't know what that…Thank you. Give me a little time. I'll do some research. Figure out how to make this work."

Prudii had seen a few quarians coupled with other races before during his time a merc. "Aren't there things out there already for quarians to interact with other races?"

Tali knew what he was referring to. "Sure. But in most cases, everything is happening outside the suit. Nerve stimulations programs and such. I don't want that." Both of Tali's hand were now hold one of Prudii's, "If I'm going to be with you, I want it to be real. I need to feel your skin on mine. I've never shown my face to anyone…but I'm ready to show you. If I can do it without dying."

Prudii wasn't sure if he could help her any further. "Is there anything I can do?"

Tali quickly assured him, "There are a few ways to temporarily improve my immune system. Immuno boosters, antibiotic injections, that kind of thing. I'll spare you the details. But trust me, I've got plenty of motivation to figure something out."

Prudii was actually smiling behind that bucket of his as he nodded to her, "Whenever you figure it out, I'll be here."

Tali held his hand a bit longer as she whispered, "I'll let you know. I promise. Until then, I should, you know, do something. Repairs. For the mission."

Tali quickly returned to her terminal as she started to work on the Normandy and did her other research on the side. Prudii was listening to the hum of the drive core for a moment as his body finally felt serene. He's mind has felt calm before while he sniped but this was something else. He wasn't sure but he knew he couldn't live without this feeling ever again.

Even with their helmets, their actions were loud enough for a certain thief to take notice. Kasumi normally might have started talking about them and spread the gossip, but she wasn't going to spoil their little thing. _It's about time that grouch felt happy. I wonder if they'll need any presents. But I'm sure he'll be good to her._

* * *

As Aran and the other continued their escapade on Tuchanka, Pyth couldn't help but listen to a rather loud voice. _What the hell are they doing? Why isn't Aria doing something to protect them! That bitch is probably not doing anything because she hasn't been targeted._

Pyth walked into the room, "Excuse me." As Nyona was about to get up, Pyth tried to assure her, "Please, don't interpret my actions as being a snoop or busybody. Your thoughts were just so loud, I could help but listen."

Nyona garbled, "Figured it'd be you or that Jedi who'd hear me."

"Please understand, unlike Jedi, we Draethos have to live with this ability 24/7 as these humans says. Though that ability has helped me avoid some rather embarrassing moments early in my career as a professor." She quickly returned to the subject at hand, "I'm sorry. We were discussing about you and your worries."

"WE were not discussing anything. YOU were invading my mind!"

Pyth tried to correct her, "A Jedi is able to force their way into an individual's thoughts; I can only hear and commune with what's on the surface. But you seem rather concerned for others outside of this ship."

Nyona closed the door behind Pyth as she sat back down on the chair. "Before I met them, I worked for an asari named Aria T'Loak. She's the ruler of a station called Omega. I was one of her best pupils. So good, I started to run my own little racket within Omega. Until Aran came, I thought I was untouchable. But that's not this is about. It's about the girls I left, and they're worried."

"About?"

"They think an Ardat-Yakshi is on Omega…"

Pyth pulled out her omni-tool as she scanned through asari culture and references. "Ah, here it is. It's from a dead asari dialect that means 'demon of the night winds.' Why are they afraid of an ancient myth?"

Nyona scoffed, "That's because it not just a myth. You're not going to find it anywhere on the extranet. This is something the asari don't want widely known to the other races. And even some of the asari don't believe it. I know I didn't when Aria first told me."

"And yet you fear them."

"Did you hear my thoughts again?"

Pyth shock her head, "No. Body language. Please continue though. I promise not to tell any of the others, if you do not wish me to."

Nyona was reluctant at first, normally confining her feeling away from the others. "Alright. But no one better talk about it."

"I swear upon my former warrior's honor. It may not sound like much, but trust me, it's better than it sounds."

Nyona let out a sigh, "Fine. Ardat-Yakshi are a rare genetic disorder. When they mate, they overwhelm their mate's nervous system, causing a brain hemorrhage. Every time they do it the Ardat-Yakshi gets stronger and smarter. But the bodies they leave have…an emptiness to them that can only be done by an Ardat-Yakshi. The only problem is, unless you know who they are, they can hid themselves rather easily among the asari population."

"And you're worried that your former employees are in danger of this rather unfortunate death."

Nyona turned to the professor, "Am I that obvious?"

"Well given all of the information and the direction you've been driving this, I can only assume that is your worry. I mean everyone else that you really care for are here, or live on this ship."

"Are my feeling really that transparent," thinking she'd been keeping herself distant.

"Not at all. It has been through your actions, and a bit of your tone when you took command a few times, that I see this. The Jedi probably learned the first time we all met. Having worked with many different clones, both the infantry units and the special ops, I believe Aay'han knows as well, though he is rather good at hiding it." Pyth turned to the small view port in the room, "Well for now, the best thing we can do is hope for the best and pray that your former workers all continue to remain safe."

Just as Pyth said that a new message arrived for Nyona. The message was from Gavorn. It read, 'Nyona, I don't know why but Aria wanted me to pass this message on to you. Shepard and some asari justicar are on Omega currently dealing with a certain problem you might already be aware of.'

Pyth smiled, "Well it seems you no longer have to worry about them now."

"Why would you say that?"

Pyth pulled up a profile on her omni-tool, "Given previous accounts and publicly available reports, this Commander Shepard fellow is a rather upright human who seeks the interests of all and the safety of as many as possible. I'm sure he and this justicar are going to find and capture this Ardat-Yakshi, or more likely kill her when she resists."

* * *

**A/N: **Almost time for the 'dead' Reaper. Sorry can't talk, must play. For any interested in finding me on the multiplayer side PM me your interest and I'll pm my gamertag.

**Mando'a Translation: **Nothing I can do here.


	58. Rite and Justice

**A/N: **Trying to stay off the internet to avoid as many spoilers of Mass Effect 3 as possible(story related; looking for info on weapons, powers and crew), only coming on to read the Alliance News Net pages and to give updates to you guys here.

* * *

The Urdnot shaman had a scowl on his face as Vren approached him. "So the last of the Torg clan finally returns home to Tuchanka. If I was clan leader you would have be dead the moment you left your ship."

Vren humbly lowered himself to the shaman, "I understand, shaman. I only wish to find a new clan to call my own again."

"Hmm. Indeed." The shaman turned his attention to the humanoids surrounding Vren, "So these are the Mandalorians. They don't seem as powerful as rumors lead me to believe."

Aay'han was tempted to speak out to the krogan, but Rang shouted him down first, "Look pal, I haven't seen you fight and I don't call you a weakling. So let's not judge books by their covers and start over. Hello, I'm Rang of the Mandalorians, nice to meet 'ya."

The shaman couldn't care less, completely ignoring Rang's hand. "If you wish to join clan Urdnot, then you must go through the Rite of Passage once again."

Rang forcefully put himself into the conversation once again, "Sorry to question krogan wisdom here, but if Vren already past his rite why are you making him go through it again?"

"Because I was clanless for so long. Fifty-something human years have passed since my clan was destroyed. If I was on Tuchanka when they were destroyed, I might have been able to join a clan. That is if I survived the assault and the Blood Pack took any prisoners."

The shaman only added on to this list, "It has been centuries since he passed his Rite. I will not let this clanless weaken Urdnot. If he can survive the Rite again, then I will consider allowing Vren into clan Urdnot."

Aran wasn't sure about this. "Vren, are you sure you want to go through all of this just for a name?"

"I must. I can't really call myself a krogan until I do."

Aran turned to the shaman, "Can Vren take anyone with him?"

The shaman nodded, "Yes. But he can only bring his krantt. Those who are willing to fight and die for his name and honor."

Aran understood. "We are his krantt. Tell us what needs killing and it will be dead. No questions asked."

The shaman actually started to smile, "I like you. You seem to understand what it means to be a true krogan, just as the human Shepard. I see the Mandalorians are more than just rumors." The shaman turned back to Vren, "You may yet prove to be a worthy member of the clan. Something I didn't think would be so."

* * *

Shepard was dressed up in the tux Kasumi gave him when he pretended to be Solomon Gunn. Inside the VIP section of Afterlife, Shepard helped save an investigative journalist from ending up dead in the alleys of Omega, he pounded a rather rude turian patron and knocked out two turian bullies who were hoping for some easy credits. These acts were enough to gain Morinth's attention. With everything he had learned, Shepard was easily able to peak her interest further, even receiving an invite to her apartment.

At Morinth's apartment, Shepard looked around at a few of her mementos before joining her on the couch. "I love clubs—people, movement, heat. I can still hear the bass, like the drums of a great hunt, out for your blood. But here, it's muted—and you're safe. Is that what you want, Shepard?"

Shepard continued to play along with her, "People feel safest right before they die."

Morinth seemed rather familiar with that fact, "It's true, we're never safe. I've never understood the fascination with safety. Some of us choose differently." Morinth sat on Shepard's lap, trying to use her asari charm to seduce him further, "Independence over submission. I think we share that, you and I."

"We've both killed many times, but that's where the similarities end."

Morinth was rather surprised by Shepard, "Why do you say that I've killed? What do you know? Let's stop playing games." She got off his leg and sat next to him on the couch. Her eyes were closed for a moment before she opened them again, now jet black as she tried to manipulate his thoughts, "Look into my eyes and tell me you want me. Tell me you'd kill for me. Anything I want."

Shepard wasn't there because he wanted her, "Don't count on it."

"But you…who are you?" Morinth quickly realized the error she made, "Oh, no—I see what's going on. That bitch herself found a little helper."

The door to Morinth's apartment opened as Samara walked through. "Morinth" The moment Morinth got up for the couch Samara blasted her with biotics and pinned her against the window.

Morinth quickly recovered, turning her head back to the justicar, "Mother."

Samara sent another biotic pulse to Morinth pinning her against the window again, "Do not call me that."

Morinth was fighting back as Samara's control over her was slowly weakening, "I can't choose to stop being your daughter, Mother."

Samara prepared to finish her, "You made your choice long ago."

As Samara gathered her strength, Morinth found her chance to unleash a biotic wave that pushed Samara back and freed her from the window. "What choice?

Samara levitated herself to launch a biotic blast at Morinth, as Morinth grabbed a chair, "My only crime was being born with the gifts you gave me," knocking Samara to the ground with the chair.

Morinth slowly moved to Samara, expecting the chair to have weakened her. Instead it seems to have only angered her. Samara quickly turned around to blast Morinth, "Enough, Morinth!"

Both asari were back on their feet now caught in a biotic struggle that started to affect the furniture around them, "I am the genetic destiny of the asari. But they are not ready to reveal this, so I must die."

"You are a disease to be purged, nothing more."

Morinth knew it was a long shot, but she hoped the human might see 'reason'. "I'm as strong as she is—let me join you!"

"I am already sworn to help you, Shepard. Let us finish this."

Without a moment hesitation, Shepard grabbed Morinth's arm and pulled it behind her head, "End of the line, Morinth."

And they call me the monster!" Shepard released her just before Samara knocked her to the floor.

Morinth didn't have time to get back to her feet as she tried to crawl away from Samara. But Samara wasn't going to let her flee again. She grabbed Morinth by the throat as her entire body was enveloped by her biotics. "Find peace in the embrace of the goddess." Samara delivered a devastating smash with a bioticly charged fist, splatting her head across the floor. Samara slowly picked herself up from being over her daughter and calmly told Shepard, "I am ready to leave this place and get on with my life. Are you ready to go, as well?"

Shepard didn't think this could be easy for her. "Do you want to talk about what happened?"

"Shepard. What do you think I will say? What can I say? I just killed the bravest and smartest of my daughters. There are no words. I will try another time. For now, show mercy on a broken old warrior and let us leave."

* * *

Lissarkh remained with the shaman as the clones became Vren's krantt and fought alongside the veteran warrior. As they neared the last of the beast in this part of the rite, the Harvester creature appeared again and landed to deploy another group of Klixens bugs to attack the team.

Aay'han blasted the first one the moment it touched the ground. The Klixen exploded and knocked its fellow red bug over from the explosion. Rang popped an anti-armor round, killing the last explosive bug. "God I sorta wished I didn't have to kill these guys."

Aran joked, "What's the matter, Rang? Getting soft on us?"

"Nah, just that these bastards were glorious. Nasty red fire spitters that self-terminate in a fiery inferno in an attempt to take us with them! What's not to like?"

"Sir."

Aran nodded to his second. "Vren, how long are we supposed to hold out against the Maw?"

Vren gazed upon the remains of the space elevator that was used to summon these creatures. "My clan only needed us to last for about three minutes. I don't know how long the Urdnot will want."

"Not to sound left out or anything, but could one of you tell me what this Thresher Maw is?"

Rang wrapped his free arm around Aay'han's head, "A thresher maw is a giant-ass worm. Think of it as cross between a sand burrower and a sarlacc; bastards can be found on almost any world their pods crash on, they burrow, they have two large sickle arms that could probably slice an AT-TE in two, and have acid spit that could just as easily eat away at almost any armor. No pressure."

Vren knew the ground they were on would not allow a thresher to appear beneath them and was ready to activate the elevator to summon the creature. Aran nodded to the krogan to signal the team was ready. The team could feel the ground shake as the Maw came closer. Off in the distance, three tendrils shot out of the ground. Aay'han was slightly disappointed by the sight given Rang's description. "Those are thresher maws?"

"Nope," Rang fired a few rounds at the tendrils causing them to withdraw, enraging the creature to erupt out of the ground. "That's a maw!"

* * *

Back on the Normandy, Kasumi had already spoken with some of the crew about Samara killing her own daughter. Having already spoken with Shepard though has brought her some peace. The door to the observation deck opened behind her, though it wasn't Shepard. "_N'eparavu takisit_."

Samara had felt his presence a few times before when their paths have crossed on the Normandy. "You are the Mandalorian they call Prudii, correct?" Prudii only nodded to her, knowing Samara could tell. "Why have you come to me?"

"You were a mother. And you chose to kill your own daughter." Prudii didn't know much about her, other than that she was a justicar, a being whose sole purpose now was ensuring justice. "You look exhausted. I think it's time for a _cin vhetin_. You look ready to finally continue your journey."

Samara knew little of the Mandalorians behind their mercenary reputation, as the Mandalorians have preferred the galaxy to view them as such. But she sensed sincerity in his words. "Yes. I can finally close this dark chapter of my life and continue to the end. It was nice speaking with you." Prudii nodded again and left knowing he too had things he wanted to do before death.

* * *

On Tuchunka, the squad continued to battle against the thresher maw as its acid continued to eat away at the few pillars still standing. The team was doing well as the thresher maw retreated into the ground again. "This wormjust doesn't want to go down."

Aran took this moment to speak to Rang, "_Vod_, how long have we been at this?"

"Two minutes, something seconds, I ain't count. I'm just trying to stay alive against this one."

"Rang, we need a thermal detonator. One of your modified one."

"Boss man, even if I could throw it at the Maw, which I'm not saying I can't, the armor plating on that thing would probably withstand it or the _shabuir_ will just burrow back underground before it detonates. There's no guarantee here."

Aran followed its movements, "Yeah well I don't think it's as smart as you make it out be. And we're not going to use it on the outside, we're going to blast it from inside."

Rang shouted, "Unless you somehow learned to use the Force when I wasn't looking or we've got a suicidal idiot volunteering, I can't see how we're getting this detonator inside that!"

The thresher maw appeared again as it started to attack as Vren, Beviin and Aay'han kept it occupied. Aran pointed at the maw's mouth, "Those tentacles will do the work for us. We just need you to lob it close enough for one of them to grab the thermal."

Rang tried to think of an argument against the plan, but he couldn't. "Alright, give me a few seconds to make sure the timer is at least fifteen seconds."

Vren was unleashing the Z-6 at full power, unmoving as he tried to kill the thresher maw on his own terms. The maw fired off another ball of acid directed to the krogan, but Vren kept his ground until Aay'han knocked him out of the way. The acid however was able to skin Vren's armor as it quickly started to eat away at the paludron. Aay'han detached the piece and tossed it before it could spread to the rest of Vren's armor. "Thanks."

"No need. Your part of the Mandalorians. That's what we're here for." Aay'han helped Vren back up, reminiscent to how Prudii behaved when the two first met.

Waiting for the thresher maw to appear again, Rang had primed the thermal detonator to explode eighteen seconds after he pulls the trigger. They spotted the debris of the maw burrowing before it stopped east of the elevator. "Eat this, you son of a Murglak!" Rang tossed the activated detonator just as the maw shot out of the ground. As the maw lowered its head to roar, the tendrils around its mouth grabbed the small detonator as it passed it onto its tongue and down its esophagus. The team continued to attack the maw as it continued to volley acid their way. Rang gave the squad the five second warning as they started to run away from the thresher.

Before the thresher maw could spit another ball of acid the thermal detonator went off. The explosion was violent as it separated the upper halve of the maw sending it to the platform the Mandalorians were fighting on, skidding across the elevated level as Beviin jumped down to join the others. The other half of the thresher maw collapsed onto the ground as the head continued to moan.

Vren left the Z-6 with the others as he readied his Claymore shotgun, carefully walking around the head and keeping his eyes on the claws. Vren then climbed onto the thresher maw as he placed the shotgun onto the 'head' of the maw and finished fired. The body flinched when Vren fired, but in the end the maw was dead. With all of these dead creatures around Vren reloaded and jumped off, "Let us return the shaman. We shouldn't keep them waiting."

* * *

Returning to the Urdnot camp the team was guided back to the shaman. "Impressive. This time you were able to kill the thresher maw. You have become very powerful over the centuries."

Vren lowed himself to the shaman, "I had a powerful krantt who gave me their strength."

"Indeed you did." The shaman placed a hand on Vren's shoulder, "Welcome to the clan, Urdnot Vren."

Lissarkh walked back in the area to rejoin the clones. "Now that our business has concluded let us return to the ship."

* * *

The squad went through decontamination twice because of the amount of radiation that emitted from Tuchancka from wars long past. Prath had waited for them to return, "Araniik, given Vren's rather good disposition, I would assume he was able to find a new krogan clan to join."

Vren removed his helmet as he smiled, "I happened to join the same clan I supported long ago."

Prath was rather glad, "Good to hear. In anticipation of your success I was looking for a job you might want to take up." Prath gave Aran a datapad, "This one in particular however seems to have other motives behind it. I believe I know this vol-clan. They are cowards but greedy as any other volus. It wouldn't be too hard for the Eclipse or Blue Suns to threaten them into doing this. Or kill them and used their ship."

The job was an escort mission for a volus merchant group. They provided coordinates for the Tervho to meet them as a team was onboard their ship while they picked up their shipment to provide extra security until they arrived at the designated location for the drop off. "Sounds like something the Blue Suns would do. The only reason we're taking the job is to keep those merchants alive, if there's any left to save. Otherwise I wouldn't want to disappoint the Suns. General."

Lissarkh turned to Bev, "Given the coordinates, how many ways are there for your ship to get there?"

Beviin checked all known relay routes on his omni-tool, "Two rather direct paths and one that would require us to travel around the galaxy through Citadel space. That'd be the safest course of action, though we'd get there around the time the merchant ship's supposed to get there."

Lissarkh nodded, "Very well. Araniik, I will accompany those who are to 'defend' the ship. I will let you decide for your crew as to their next step."

Aran had to think about it. He finally turned to his second, "Bev, I want you guys to loiter in the Tasale system, around Illium. Don't dock at any of the planet's landing zones. I don't care what excuses you use, just orbit the planet for a day or so. Wait as long as you can before joining us at the coordinates where the merchant ship is supposed to make the drop off. Vren, you're taking lead on this one. Take the shuttle and a team of six to group with the merchant ship."

* * *

The Mandalorian shuttle arrived at the planned location where the volus vessel was waiting for them. On board the shuttle with Vren were Rang, Tare, Forta, Jak and Lissarkh. The hangar to the ship was wide open fully ready for them to dock. Rang socked Jak's arm after seeing the open hangar, "See, I told ya we made sure the Mythosaurs skull was recognized as the symbol of the Mandalorians."

Jak shook the hit off as he looked into the area, "So where the hell's the welcome committee? It's really starting to look like your fat friend might be right about the merc angle."

The shuttle touched down within the dock as the squad prepared for combat. Rang asked Vren, "So what now, leader?"

"Well now I've got to be more Urdnot-like. They are the best tacticians on Tuchanka." Vren turned back to Rang. "Think you can get a headcount on anyone left alive?"

"One moment…" Rang's visor turned from the normal highlight blue to black as he started to scan as much of the ship as his sensors could. "My scanners have a very limited radius and given the size of the ship, I got about less than half. Saying that, I found twelve lifesigns walking around."

Tare was looking through old data on his omni-tool. "I once served on a former volus ship on the Migrant Fleet. Here's her lay out. From the size and form of the ship when we approached, it looks very similar."

Rang took the data as he plotted the locations of the lifesigns. "OK, so that leaves the bridge and maybe this secondary cargo hold here unaccounted for."

Lissarah already had a plan laid out in her mind. "So we need to spilt into two teams. Clean the ship from the dock and work our way around the wing sections and regroup before reaching the cargo hold and bridge. Isn't that correct, Urdnot?"

Vren nodded to her, "Eh, yeah. I'll take Forta and Tare. You can lead Rang and the flyboy. Hope the mercs don't disappoint."

* * *

**A/N: **I think this will be a good transition. As for Prudii speaking with Samara, as warriors they have a level of respect for one another and Prudii tried to view what she had to go through if Vhonte had to kill one of her commandos, not easy I'm sure. Well that was fun, and the Mandalorians are all ready for anything.

**Mando'a Translation:**

N'eparavu takisit(Nay-PAH-rav-OO ta-KEE-sit)- sorry(lit: I eat my insult)

cin vhetin(SEEN-fett-EEN)- fresh start, clean slate(lit: white field, virgin snow)

shabuir(SHAH-boo-EER)- extreme insult - "jerk", but much stronger


	59. Forgotten history

**A/N: **Only a few days before ME3 is in my hand and I'll be off to play my brains out. See you all on the otherside.

* * *

The Blue Suns did not disappoint, as the two teams encountered and killed over thirty mercs and mechs before finding a locked bridge. Forta examined the door, only to have bad news, "Looks like a level 12 security encryption key…"

Lissarkh placed her claws against the door as she asked, "Does this galaxy have blast doors as strong as our own?"

Rang was hesitant to respond to the Trandoshan's question at first, "Well, yes and no. Yes they do have blast doors but I really doubt they had lightsabers in mind when they made them. And I'm assuming you plan to cut your way in?" Lissarkh pulled out her lightsaber's hilt once more as she ignited the blade. "Uh, Forta. You might want to move now."

With Forta out of the way, Lissarkh drove the blade into the door as it left a burning red mark around the spot. She worked her lightsaber in a circle large enough for a krogan to walk through. The Blue Suns on the other side of the door had no idea as to what could cut through the bridge's door so rapidly with them hearing anything beyond the strange humming noise.

With the circle complete, the blade was withdrawn from the door. One of the mercs moved closer to examine the door under orders of the commanding officer. Just as he was about to place his hand on it, a powerful thrust threw the cut section out, crushing the turian under the new door. Lissarkh used the Force as she threw one of the LOKI mechs into another one. Jak and Tare followed her through as they provided support fire. Lissarkh continued to block and counter as many shots as she could as the others joined them.

Forta disabled another LOKI mech with a tech attack as Vren tore through two of the mercs. Rang grabbed for his LJ-50 concussion rifle as he ran up to the commanding Blue Sun, stunning the human before firing off a round that killed another merc as the energy exploded out. Tare and Jak finished the last of the Suns off just as Forta deactivated the last LOKI mech.

Rang grabbed the disoriented commander as he placed the LJ-50's electrically charged EMP bayonet, "Now, let's talk. 'Cause I know you don't want to speak with my krogan friend here or the Jedi over there. Who ordered the hit? And what's your plan?"

* * *

Shepard had just returned from a deserted Cerberus research station where Jack was one of many test subjects. Prudii couldn't hear Jack panning about below them, making this ship slightly more dangerous than it originally was. Without warning a scream was heard above that echoed through much of the ship, "Touch me and I will smear the walls with you, bitch!"

Prudii and the others in engineering looked up, toward the shouting. He was the first to shrug the noise off, "What took her so long?"

Ken however had a rather unusual view of the situation, "Hey Prudii, want to bet who wins?"

"Why bother? Shepard is bound to break it up before the fight goes anywhere. Though, I think you should worry if Jack is still pissed." Ken thought about it as he turned to the door behind him, waiting to make sure Jack didn't walk through tearing the place up with her biotics. Even if she did he'd probably just get out of her way.

"And you'd stop her, right?"

Prudii didn't say anything to Gabby. He instead changed the topic all together, "Tali, how's the new upgrades working for the ship?"

Tali was too busy readjusting the Normandy's power flow with the new cannons Garrus had installed, to top it off she was still fine tuning her own upgrades to the shield systems while maintaining the Normandy's drive core. Gabby stared down the clone, "Uh, you didn't answer the question."

Prudii remained calm as he continued to look at the door behind Tali. "If Jack came down here throwing her biotics around, I might. Don't really have any reason to kill her. We don't need the bounty on her."

"Bounty?"

"Yeah. News spread about the destruction of the Purgatory fast. Body counts and recordings were used to verify which prisoners were unaccounted for. News warns the people. Governments issue the bounty. We got both. Aran wasn't interested."

They could hear Jack stomping out of the elevator and down the stairs. Jack then shouted out to the engineers, "Don't bother me bitches or I'll rip your spines out and beat you with it!"

"She seems fine."

* * *

After having a chat with their captive Blue Sun merc, Rang was able to learn the truth about the 'job'. "OK, so it seems we screwed up about a year ago when we didn't kill every merc on that job in the Titan Nebula. Seems he finally climbed up the ladder enough to orchestrate this whole thing. Personally, I'm actually flattered he remembered us to even waste his time and plan this out."

"But what about the others? Aren't they going to be in danger if we don't do something?"

"I wouldn't worry about them kid." Jak then pointed out, "I've yet to see a situation Dagger and Swoop couldn't find a way out of. Plus you all have commando training. I'm sure Aran's got a plan or two up his gauntlets."

"Or we could do something with it." While Rang was questioning the merc, Forta had discovered a datapad detailing everything, from ship movements to the codes that are supposed to be transmitted for each phase of the plan.

Forta tossed the datapad over to Lissarkh. She quickly read through the plan before handing it off to Rang. "Yep, their definitely not thinking about Rules 64 through 66. Vren, you're the boss here. What's our next move?" handing the datapad to the krogan now.

"We continue with their plan. Let them think we're dead or captured, then we have the _Tervho_ surprise them and blast them to the void."

"And how do you propose that?" Lissarkh quickly questioned.

"I might have an answer to that too." Forta had already access the ship's communication systems as he continued, "It seems the merchants had their own private and secured comm. channel. All we have to do is piggyback off that signal, add our own encryptions, and the Suns should be none the wiser."

"So it falls upon us to time our signal to the others and the signal to the Suns to be just right. This is going to be fun."

* * *

After mining a few planets in the Caleston Rift, the Normandy headed off to investigate a derelict Reaper of which a Cerberus research team had mysteriously stopped reporting from. There was some rather serious turbulence to reach the Reaper 'corpse' as it maintained its orbit around a brown dwarf until the Normandy passed through the Reaper's mass effect field. The Normandy's larder detected an unidentified ship whose silhouette matched a geth dropship. The Normandy docked with an arm installed by the Cerberus research team. Shepard wasn't taking any chances with exploring the interior of a Reaper, he requested Tali and Thane to join him to search for the Reaper IFF and signs of the Cerberus team, though the prospect of finding anyone alive quickly fleeted at the sight of three corpses behind the airlock.

"No one here to welcome us. That's not good."

Prudii took a closer look at the three bodies as Shepard moved to examine the few active terminals of the Cerberus team. He may not be a medical expert, but that doesn't mean he couldn't determine the cause of their deaths. _Bodies have been dead for about four weeks now if the room's temperature has been maintained and no parasites, which is probable. No bullet wounds. Obvious signs of a struggle._ Prudii's hand found grooves covering the chest and head. Five _claws? Geth don't have five digits, and they definitely don't have claws. What the hell could it be?_

Prudii found Shepard was listening to a recording at the far end of the hall. The commando readied his bowcaster, setting the weapon to fire pure energy bolts as his DC-17m had its assault rifle attachment's barrel strapped on with the clip waiting in his pack. As the team was ready to move into the next section of the Reaper, a tremor was felt by the squad, "Normandy to shore party!"

Shepard quickly answered after the tremor stopped, "What just happened?"

"The Reaper put up kinetic barriers. I don't think we can get through from our side."

"As curious as I am about Reapers, I'd rather not be trapped inside one."

Shepard however noticed behind Tali, discontent with their tagalong. "Are you alright?"

Tali and Thane turned to find Prudii as he seemed to be suffering from a headache, with a hand to his helmet's visor while leaning his right arm against the wall. "Prudii?"

He was whispering to himself, but Tali could hear him as she tried to help him, "…switch the face of the +1/-1 card, the totals are nine-ten. Switch the face of the +2/-2 card, the total is eight-eleven."

Tali tried to get him to respond again, "Prudii…"

His arm finally moved away from his visor as he turned to her, "…I'm alright. I wasn't expecting to need that technique so soon. I'll be fine now. Don't worry about me."

Shepard waited for Prudii to signal he was truly fine before returning to the situation at hand, "We'll have to take down the barrier generators from in here. Any idea where they are?"

EDI had the ship's sensors actively scan the Reaper prior to the barrier being formed, "At the moment of activation, I detected a heat spike in what is likely the wreck's mass effect core. Sending the coordinates now. Be advised: this core is also maintaining the Reaper's altitude."

"So when we take the barriers down to escape the wreck fall into the planet core."

Joker added with his trademark remark. "And that means everyone dies. Yeah, I got it."

Shepard had confidence in his friend, "If any helmsman can pull us off this thing before it reaches crash depth, it's you. We'll make a sweep for survivors and recover what data we can. Stand by."

"Aye, aye. Good hunting."

Beyond the airlock were three more bloody bodies in similar conditions to the ones before, stretched out on the Cerberus-made walkways. "I've heard stories about this sort of…atrocity. I thought they were exaggerated." Thane, having been trained to make clean and efficient kills, was not accustom to seeing such unsavory scene.

"I've seen worse," Prudii wasn't even phased by how mangled the corpses were. Instead he calmly moved closer to examine the bodies, finding exactly the same things as the others before them. "War turns ugly very fast," speaking both a fact and a warning to the others.

Shepard found another active terminal with a security recording of two Cerberus personnel, "_You're married? You never mentioned that._"

"_Katy had anger management issues. When my brother got married, the best man tried to hit on her. She kicked him down the church steps._ "

"_Wh—? Katy's my wife! I must have told you the story._"

"_No. I know my wife. I remember—that day was the only time I saw her wear stockings._"

"_Yeah. The kind with seams up the back. That's what I remember, too._"

"_What the hell is this? How can we remember the same thing?_"

"It sounds like the Reaper was affecting their minds." Thane's assessment of their condition and the video itself had Prudii thinking about his own condition currently. He persevered, believing the expected fighting, and the mental technique, will aid him until they leave this vessel.

Continuing down the walkway the squad started to hear a moaning sound. Prudii pointed out for Shepard, "IEDs. Not my style but they look ready for use."

A husk and abomination husk had crawled their way onto the walkway as they started to move toward the team. Without hesitation, Prudii fired the first shot into the approaching husk as the energy bolt went through its skull. The abomination ignited itself as it started to move into a bit of a gallop. Shepard knocked the husk down with a Concussion Shot allowing Thane to finish it with his biotics. The abomination then detonated itself, destroying the tanks in front of the team. Even more started to crawl out from underneath the walkway as they tried to kill the team.

The husks were no match for the precision teamwork of Prudii and Thane as Tali and Shepard supported by distracting the husks and causing the ones they didn't kill to stagger.

The walkway floor now littered with the fallen husk bodies, Thane took a closer look to one of the husks, "I had wondered if the technology to make husks came from the geth or Sovereign."

"Never seen these things with the geth outside the Citadel two years," Prudii added.

"Geth origin never made sense to me. This confirms it's from the Reapers." More moans soon echoed the halls as the arms of more husks grabbed the edge of the walkway and pulled themselves up.

* * *

The Blue Suns had received the ambush signal from the decoy team. "It's about damn time. I've waited over a year for this. Get us there, now!" The merc was overconfident that his plan succeeded, believing his 'elites' were enough to kill and capture a Mandalorian squad. However when they appeared only the merchant ship was visible. "What the hell is going on? Team what's your situation!"

There were a few seconds before they actually responded. "_Uh, nothing. Everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine here now, thank you. How are you?_"

"Why did you signal the attack if the Mandalorians aren't here!"

Suddenly over the comm. shots could be heard. "_Eat this you sons of bitches! Think you can trick us and get away with it!_"

"I want a squad ready to eliminate them!" As the Suns prepared to investigate, the Mandalorian ship arrived. The ship's shields and weapons were already activated as they started to blast at the Blue Sun vessel. The first volley of torpedoes disabled the vessel's defenses as the turrets quickly tore through the hull. There was no transmission from the Mandalorians, no offer of surrender. Their ship just continued with their assault utterly obliterating the mercs.

* * *

The away team watched as the Blue Sun ship was ripped to shreds as the _Tervho_ quickly destroyed them, "Woo-hoo! Yeah! Look at them burn!"

Tare turned away from the destruction of the Blue Sun ship to their prisoner, "So what are we supposed to do with him?"

"Well this mess was caused by letting that other fool live. I think it's safer to just end his life now." Vren slowly placed his Claymore shotgun against the man's head, ready to pull the trigger.

A powerful energy threw Vren's arm back as the shotgun flew to Lissarkh as she moved between the krogan and the captive. "As I Jedi, I cannot let you kill an unarmed prisoner. We will drop him off with the local authorities and let the justice system do its job."

"Justice? Our guns are justice out in the Terminus Systems. If someone steals from you, you kill them. If someone insults you, you kill them. Besides, the Blue Suns are nothing more than murderers, just like the Eclipse and Blood Pack. There's no reason we should just space him."

Lissarkh started to hiss at the krogan, "I am that reason you won't space him."

Rang pulled Vren back, "Look, as much as I want to kill the guy too, this argument is one-sided. General wins hands down."

"What's wrong, no faith in us?"

"Oh I have faith, Vren. Faith that if we attack, we're all going to die by a lightsaber slicing us to ribbons. You haven't seen the General when she's pissed. I haven't either. And I would rather see that against our enemies rather than us." Vren was rather hesitant in letting the merc just leave like that.

* * *

As the arguments continued, the merc finished using a hidden blade to pick the lock of his cuffs. The blade wasn't big enough for him to use against any of them, even the quarian's mask had extra protect due to his Mandalorian helmet. But he did see a weapon he could use against them. The krogan's Claymore was being held by its barrel and if he could get a hold of the weapon, he might have a chance.

When the chance seemed to present itself, the Blue Sun merc jumped up and grabbed the massive shotgun out of the stranger's hands. The weapon was already load and he tried to kill the krogan first but something severely threw off his aim as he felt something turn him toward the doorway. He noticed the arm of the strange Mandalorian had been thrown out that way but she never touched him or the weapon. The shotgun fired, he had to reload and take aim again before the Mandalorians killed him. The stranger who defended him activated that unusual light blade as she twirled the black blade around in a flurry. In an instant she was next to him with her back to his face as a painful burning sensation overcoming him. He looked down to see the blade was stabbed through him as she grabbed the shotgun with her free hand and easily pulled it out of his dying fingers. He tried to fight to his last breath but it was futile. He heard the weapon deactivated yet the burning was too much for him to bear as he collapsed to the floor.

* * *

With the Blue Sun commander dead on the floor, Vren took this moment to point out the contradiction. "So you end up killing the guy instead."

Lissarkh gazed upon the dead mercenary, "I killed him in self-defense. Both for this team and my own. His mind was of malcontent, true as you had believed. My focus was on you and planning means of disabling you should you decide to force the matter any further. Had I been more mindful of my surroundings, his death could have been averted."

"So you're blaming me for killing him?"

"No," Lissarkh lowered her head as she left the bridge. "I can only blame myself."

Jak tried to break this rather sour note, "Jedi. No matter how hard you try, sometimes ya just can't figure them out. Right?"

* * *

Having wiped out the second group of husks and finished listening to another recording with the same two Cerberus personal showing more signs of indoctrination, the squad continued up the ramp. There were two more decaying corpses and a computer terminal just ahead. Without warning a shot was fired as a husk fell and not long after a second gunshot followed by a second husk.

"Sniper! Someone else is still alive in here. They're a rather good shot."

Prudii cloaked to see if he could find the shooter and see his work firsthand. He didn't know of too many in this galaxy who could pull this off so easily, given the placement of the area, the best position for the shooter to have been was about one hundred meters out and about ten meters high. Prudii spotted a catwalk that was perfect but no sign of the shooter. "He's already gone." With the area calm again, Prudii started to examine the husk heads, "Clean through the frontal and temporal lobes. Even the cerebellums. Nice clean kills." Prudii however did notice that both shots were nearly identical in placement and executed within a timespan of roughly two seconds.

Shepard was able to find some rather valuable resources gathered in the area. Prudii cautioned the Commander that the area ahead seemed to clean to be anything but an ambush. With Prudii's silent warning, the squad cautiously moved forward.

* * *

**A/N: **Well that was a fun distaction caused by our favorite merc band. Now I have to thank verd1138 from deviantART for garthering the rules of life via Gibbs(NCIS), Cuy'val Dar, and marines and putting them all into one list(though I prefer to keep Rule 23 and Rule 89 as they were stated by Delta Squad).

**Mando'a Translation:** Will try next time.


	60. Full understanding

**A/N: **Almost time for ME3 and I can't wait until. And time to finish the Reaper IFF.

* * *

Prudii was right, the husks had been waiting in anticipation of a search party or more likely were compelled to wait for them. The rather large force had several abominations among their numbers and to the groups surprise a Scion. After having to fall back to better positions in order to eliminate the husks, the squad returned to the area to find anything that might help understand what's happened. There was another terminal setup amid the crates.

This recording was one of the men from before. His face was covered in blood as he was in a panic while leaving this cryptic message, "_Chandana said the ship was dead. We trusted him. He was right. But even a dead god dream. A god—a real god—is a verb. Not some old man with magic powers. It's a force. It warps reality just by being there. It doesn't have to want to. It doesn't have to think about it. It just does. That's what Chandana didn't get. Not until it was too late. The god's mind is gone, but it still dreams. He knows now. He's tuned in on our dream. If I close my eye I can feel him. I can feel every one of us._"

_Did you hear all of that, General?_

_Yes. Most disturbing. _Lissarkh was stretching her mind out to help protect Prudii, even during her mission with the other. This effort to protect Prudii has not hindered her fighting abilities, simply her ability to sense the thoughts of others.

_Which? The process or the effectiveness?_

_Both. This eerily reminds me of an ancient plague I once read about. It was created by a Sith before and during the Cold War that had the power to confuse and even turn Jedi Masters to follow him, or at least become so deluded they become unsuspected pawns of the dark side. Though the victims did not turn into such…abominations._

_Do you really think the Sith have anything to do with the Reapers?_

_I do not feel the dark taint around you, just the powers that wish to manipulate your mind. Though I suspect that these Reapers are far older than any Sith or the plague I described. It is…difficult to describe while shielding you. Continue to use that shielding technique however. I fear that my barrier will not be enough this time._

* * *

Tali had noticed Prudii was acting rather strange again, as he seemed distant. "Prudii, can you hear me? Are you alright?"

He seemed to return to his former self as he nodded, "Yeah. Let's keep moving."

Shepard approached the end of the platform and found three men stuck on spikes protruding from the floor. "We've seen these before, Shepard. Dragon's teeth, your people call them. The geth used them on Eden Prime."

Thane couldn't help but comment after seeing everything, "There are tales of such things among my people. Devices buried on distant worlds that turn the finders into abominations."

Shepard soon noticed a pattern with the dragon's teeth. "See how the room is arranged? They treated this thing like some kind of alter."

Tali was trying really hard not to see it. "That doesn't seem right. No one in their right mind would want this."

"You heard the logs. They were seeing things. Hearing things. They were being indoctrinated. We can't help these people now. But we won't let the machines us their corpses like this."

"Agreed."

Prudii however took it one step further. He primed three grenades and tossed each one to a body. The stabilizer fins deployed letting the disc shaped explosives reach the bodies and remain next to them. The team walked away as the grenades exploded, destroying the remains and a portion of the dragon's teeth.

Tali unlocked a serve door that lead to a pressurized door. The team readied themselves as the automated procedure activated, "Please stand by. Equalizing pressure with exterior conditions. Remember, safety is everyone's concern. We have gone five days without a workplace death."

* * *

The open area had large sections of the Reaper exposed to space but the mass effect field surrounding the ship was powerful enough to maintain a breathable atmosphere. Thane moved up as Tali watched the door and Prudii kept his eyes on the edge of the platform they were standing on.

Shepard signal Tali to move on as she rushed in front of him. Prudii however continued to move cautiously through the area expecting trouble from anywhere. There was gunshot out of nowhere, the sound of a sniper rifle passing rather close to Shepard's head. A second shot was fired and it hit a husk that had been behind the Commander. Prudii saw a second husk already collapsed onto the floor as he started to blast away at a third husk.

After Prudii kicked the husk off the platform, the squad looked up to find who it was that helped them. The figure raised itself and became visible, the team was astonished. "Shepard-Commander." It was a geth and it was using an M-92 Mantis. The machine had taken severe damage at one point, going so far as using N7 armor to replace its missing shoulder to keep the right arm attached. Prudii dropped his bowcaster as weight of the weapon pulled he sling against the back of his neck and grabbed his DC-17, immediately pulling the barrel off for the sniper components from his pack. When he took aim at the geth and was ready to exterminate it, the geth simply walk away, not even attempting to kill anyone.

Thane was rather impressed by the machine, and confused. "The geth was the sniper. I thought geth didn't speak…"

Tali couldn't understand it either, "It shouldn't be able to talk. A single geth has no more intelligence than a varren."

"Maybe it's a new model. But if that thing show's its face again it's going to be spare parts."

* * *

The _Tervho_ returned to civilized space after their excursion with the Blue Suns. Lissarkh had isolated herself in mediation as life onboard the Mandalorian ship continued. Vren wanted to speak privately with Lissarkh but Rang disputed otherwise. "Come on, big guy. Just let her be."

"You're still defending her."

"I know. Look, once you get past the whole 'order and justice' stuff, she not that bad. Just give her some time. I'm sure she'll warm up to you in time."

Vren sneered at the door Lissarkh had confined herself behind. "I have my doubts."

'Hey, you said that about us two years ago. Now look where's gotten ya. Your part of a krogan clan again and you get to kill things and be paid for it most of the time. I'd say you've gotten warm to us."

* * *

Down in engineering, Rasen finally started to let C3 assist with maintaining the _Tervho_'s system, though she insisted that one of the clones be with her along with one of the engineers. "OK, I think I've got. She said the power couplings here are actually collecting more static buildup than the others and need releasing even less."

"Now you're getting it four-eyes. Sometimes you've got to put words in for the situation to help understand them. At least that helped me when she was first assigned to us." C3 started to remember one of their first maintenance jokes she and Swoop now shared. "Well if it wasn't the hydrospanner, than it was the fusioncutter. That one never gets old."

"From the stories Sigma Squad used to tell, I'd figure you guys would hate droids like our galaxy distrusts AI. Why so much faith in this little one?"

Swoop placed his hand onto C3's dome head as he recalled the day they were reassigned to Razor Squadron. "At first Dagger and I would utterly avoid her, or treat her like a simple machine. I'm kinda sorry we ever did." C3 kindly told Jak that she understood the situation given the fact that the Republic was at war with a droid army. "Yeah but you proved yourself to be a member of our team during that one assault. Without your repairs and alerts I doubt any of us would be alive."

The doors to engineering opened just as Forta was about to ask something else. "Hey. The professor has something she wants to tell us. People are gathering to listen but it's not mandatory."

"Thanks for the heads up Rook. Well, want to go see what Pyth has to talk about?" C3 whistled as her third leg deployed and she rolled off to the elevator.

* * *

Pyth had everything set up as one of her lectures at the university, waiting for the small briefing room to fill before beginning. "Thank you everyone for coming. Now I know it's taken me sometime, but using what little reference this galaxy has on the Prothean language, and a bit of imagination using my understanding of xenolinguistics, I was able to decipher the recovered data."

"Wait, how could you guess at the translations? Shouldn't you need absolute proof to be certain or something?"

"Don't worry about it, lizard-breath. She knows what she's talking about."

"Thank you, Aay'han. But to assure the pilot, languages in our galaxy range as far as the species that in inhabit it; reptilian, mammalian, avian, aquatic, botanical, arachnoid, gastropod, crustacean, insectoid. Given the fact that we know the Collectors are actually repurposed Protheans, I called upon insectoid and arachnoid languages to aid in my references. It is rather difficult to use other languages to translate a written language but my xenopsychology proved rather valuable in filling these gaps."

"Well don't hold us in suspense, professor. What was on the terminal?"

"Yes, yes, of course. 50,000 years ago, the Protheans became an extinct race. A fact everyone here is blatantly aware of. But before that, it seemed their government had uncovered a secret. A secret they were not supposed to find. The entries are rather vague as even they were not sure just what it was they were preparing for. All in all they had hoped their research could find a 'magic bullet', I believe the human term is, to avert utter annihilation."

"They were preparing for the Reapers," Aran had shouted out.

Pyth displayed her rough translation for the others to read, "Yes, that is the name they gave 'those who pull the strings of the galaxy'. The team we found was a detachment of a research group from a planet they called Ilos. The Ilos research team was working on perfecting mass relay technology and miniaturizing it so they, in theory, could travel to any relay they wanted simply by punching in the coordinates and the mass of their vessel. This detachment went a step further. After the Conduits were constructed this team volunteered for a rather risky mission to find help beyond the galactic rim."

Rasen could only dispute this claim, "I'm sorry, but without a partner relay that is almost impossible."

Pyth then pointed out a chart that was now displaying Aurebesh, "True, the normal means of mass relay travel is to create a 'path' between two relays. The Conduit project originally had four relays interconnected, one on Ilos, one on the Citadel, and two intended for a different galaxy. Now what the Protheans seemed to have done was have two of the mass relays onboard their ship and created a path through space to a destination rather than be predetermined. Unfortunately for them, a galactic society would not emerge in our galaxy for roughly another 15,000 years in the form of the Infinite Empire. Though records of that time are rather sketchy, I highly doubt they would have given the Protheans the aid they sought." Pyth cleared her throat before continuing, "It starts to get rather interesting around the later entries. All contact with Ilos and the Conduit is cut completely. The team was left stranded with only two relays to travel between. They were left with little options. Before abandoning the project, they speak of a beacon and a message. Now we didn't find anything else at the Sigma site, but it could be speculated that the Protheans destroyed the beacon in an effort to protect our galaxy."

Nyona quickly interjected, "This all seems too convenient to be coincidence. How can we say the Protheans were really doing everything as you say?"

"Indeed it does seem to imply something else, but we do know something catastrophic did occur." Lissarkh walked into the meeting without her helmet. "After much time alone, I now understand the message left within the artifact. I cannot verify anything about the researchers Pyth refers to, but the orb did contain something else; personal entries. Journals of soldiers fighting on the frontline, refuges in their attempts to find sanctuary, scientists hoping to find a means of victory, any who wished to leave a message behind so that they may not be forgotten forever. A few died while crating their entries, but in the end they lost everything."

"Regrettably so. The last entry stated that they had finished 'disabling' the connections to the Ilos and Citadel Conduits, each only having connection to one. After everything was done, the team encased their research notes and these entries as they buried both relays to 'protect' our galaxy from the Reapers. The Protheans then planned to continue to live out their live on the planets, fully aware that they as a species would eventually become extinct. It is possible that the relays innate need for connections might have led the 'lost' programming within the relays to reestablish a connection to the other Conduits. Mere speculation, but both relays would have gone completely unnoticed by our galaxy had one of relay's not been unearthed by natural, and possibly even artificial, erosion."

"So that means we're stuck here until death do we part, huh?" Rang couldn't help but laugh hysterically, "Sorry, sorry. I'm sorry. It…just funny in my opinion."

"Hold up. We still have the hyperdrive from the fighter. Can't we us that to return home instead?"

Dagger quickly killed that idea before it had a chance to leave dock, "Even if we did Rook, we have no means of knowing how close or how far this galaxy is in relation to our own or even which direction to travel. We'd fly into the void, probably never to return again. We cut the last connection to our galaxy when we disabled the Sigma device…I mean, mass relay."

"So that means no more blasters soon…"

C3 quickly corrected Jak on that statement. Forta was rather impressed by her suggestion, "That might work actually."

"Oh come on Forta, tell us what the astromech said."

"She thinks she could use one of the known gases as a replacement for whatever it is you use for you weapons."

"It's called Tibanna, Forta. And I though we tried that, Bev?"

He corrected Aran, "All I said sir was I never got any of them to work. That doesn't mean we couldn't. If the droid's willing to test them, I could get it the gases."

C3 gladly accepted the important task before her. Pyth shut down the projector as she gathered her things. "That was all I had to talk about. Now that those questions have been sated, I will continue on with my study of this galaxy's sentient species. I believe I was last on the hanar, a rather peculiar and unexpected sentient race."

* * *

The team had fought their way through hordes of husks with a handful of abominations and six Scions. Reaching a new airlock the team discovered the data they were after, "This must be the IFF."

"So the Cerberus team did recover it. But where are they now?"

"We only found eleven corpses, and a lot of human-based husks. I think we can guess," Prudii pointed out.

With the team loaded up, and the IFF secured, Shepard opened the door to the core only to find a thick glass barrier blocking their path and the geth sniper from before accessing the Reaper's systems. Four husks were creeping ever closer to the machine. The geth seemed to notice as it pulled out a pistol and fired several rounds into the husks. Two fell of the catwalk but the geth's priority seemed to be the terminal. The barrier blocking Shepard's team was lowered as the geth tried to make a hasty retreat until one of the husks rendered the machine inoperable.

Thane sniped one of the husks as Prudii gunned the second with his DC-17m assault rifle. Soon more husks and abominations started to pull themselves onto the walkway as the team made their stand on the isolated path. Thane and Shepard targeted the husks to the left as Prudii and Tali worked together to keep the husks right of the Reaper core at bay. With the well-coordinated and efficient teamwork, the husks eventually stopped for a time as the drive core exposed itself.

"Shepard, wait." Prudii swapped his DC's current attachment for one he hardly used, the anti-armor configuration. _Damn it._ Forgetting he used his last RPG months ago and didn't bother grabbing anymore as he normally relied on Rang for explosive work. "Tali, how effective would an EMP be against the drive core?"

She had to think about it for a moment. "Well, given the nature of an EMP, it should cause a catastrophic failure in the system."

"That's all I need to hear." Prudii loaded an EMP grenade into the anti-armor making an impromptu EMP launcher. "Fire in the hole!" The makeshift combination actually worked, much to Prudii's surprise. The grenade exploded on contact and, as Tali stated, caused the drive core to overload and destroy itself.

With the core gone, the mass effect field keeping this scrapyard floating was quickly dissipating. Thane moved to investigate the geth, "Shepard! That geth—I think we should bring it. Its behavior was…strange."

Tali was greatly against the thought, "Leave it there! You know what they are! If it gets into Normandy's computers…"

"I've got a better one. That hole in its chest is a good place to leave a thermal detonator."

As the tremors continued to get worse, more husks started to crawl their way up to the team. Shepard looked to Tali, remembering a fact she told him two years ago, "You said it yourself, no one's ever found one intact."

"That's true, but…I'm not sure it's worth the risk, Shepard."

"There's no time to debate it, Tali. Come on!"

Thane and Shepard grabbed the geth as the donned protective headgear for the loss of atmosphere while Tali cleared the path and Prudii guarded the rear. As they moved closer to the evac zone Joker reported to the team. "Hang on, folks."

"Open the portside airlock."

"Aye, aye."

The geth plasma shotgun's capability of long-range attacks proved invaluable as Tali cleared the area. Prudii didn't miss a beat as he continued to kill husks while slowly walking backwards. The Normandy arrived on the scene with the airlock open and waiting. Shepard and Thane tossed the geth first before Thane jumped. Prudii pulled out his pistol due to the sheer number of husks as he balanced his rifle against his hip.

Shepard pulled out his pistol as he fired at the husks behind him and Prudii kept the left flank clear with his pistol. Tali was about halfway to the Normandy as Prudii tapped Shepard's shoulder, "Go. I'll cover you." Now the lone Mandalorian was holding his own against the husk as he waited for Shepard to reach the Normandy.

"Prudii!" With Tali's cry, Prudii jumped backwards as he used his weapons to hasten his flight to the Normandy's airlock and to kill a few more husks.

Tali and Thane caught Prudii as Shepard called out the Joker, "We're clear. Go!" The airlock sealed as the Normandy left the brown dwarf's gravitational field.

* * *

Back on the Normandy, the geth was stored within the ship's AI core while Shepard debated with Jacob and Miranda about what should be done with it. A kinetic barrier was erected along with one of the ship's security personal on standby. Prudii tossed around an EMP grenade, debating if he should use it against the geth or the ship's AI. So far EDI has done nothing that required her termination but the geth have proven their threat and he wasn't going to risk it.

* * *

**A/N: **I've gotten here just in time before ME3's release. I was hoping to have finished the suicide mission, but that's what happens when I have other stories to try and update along side this one. I'll try to continue but I'm going to finish fighting ME3 first. See you on the battle for Earth.

**Mando'a Translation:** Sorry.


	61. The Geth

**A/N: **I'm happy to say that I beat my first playthrough of Mass Effect 3 on Friday March 9. It was a rather enjoyable story with a number of heartpulling moments(at least for me), but I have to agree with many of the reviewers, the last five minutes or so hurt(and not the good kind). I can understand them _ but I would have prefered _. Don't worry I won't spoil anything to anyone, just needed to vent a little, though I'd prefer talking with someone else who has finished to vent even further. So, ignore my ranting, back to the action.

* * *

Shepard had decided to keep the geth instead of sending it to Cerberus. The crew had their concerns with having a geth onboard, though some of the non-Cerberus members like Garrus believed that it was better than letting the Illusive Man get a hold of it.

Shepard arrived to the AI core room with Prudii passing in front of it. The security grunt stood at attention as he saluted Shepard, "Ten-hut."

"I'm turning this thing back on. Be ready."

Prudii pulled out his pistol as he tightened his grip on the grenade in his left hand. EDI notified Shepard of her status, "I have isolated our systems and erected additional firewalls. I am prepared to resist any hacking attempt."

The barrier tightened as Shepard moved closer to activate the geth. Sparks started to emit from the machine as the left hand twitched for a moment. The optic moved slightly before the light started to glow brighter. The geth slowly got up as the barrier pulled back giving it room to stand. The geth seemed fully operational now as it gazed solely on Shepard. Shepard now attempted to speak with the geth, "Can you understand me?"

To which the geth responded, "Yes," much to their surprise.

"Are you going to attack me?"

"No."

Shepard was curious about the geth as he asked it, "You said my name aboard the Reaper. Have we met?"

"We know of you." The geth simply stated.

"You mean I've fought a lot of geth."

The geth attempted to correct Shepard's statement, "We have never met."

"No, you and I haven't. But I met other geth."

"We are all geth, and we have not met you. You are Shepard. Commander. Alliance. Human. Fought heretics. Killed by Collectors. Rediscovered on the Old Machine."

"You seem to know an awful lot about me."

The geth remained unchanged as it explained. "Extranet data sources. Insecure broadcasts. All organic data sent out is received. We watch you."

Shepard didn't like how it stated all of that information about him. "You watch me, or you watch organics?"

"Yes."

"Which?"

"Both."

I'm assuming you've heard of me, clanker?"

The geth's face plates flapped as it turned to the commando, "Prudii Tervho. Mandalorian. Bounty hunter. Freelancer. Established an alliance with the quarians. No casualties. No data prior to the Battle of the Citadel. Continue to fight heretics."

Shepard wanted clarification on a word the geth used prior, "'Old Machine?' You mean the Reaper?"

"Reaper. A superstitious title originating with the Protheans. We call those entities the Old Machines."

Shepard continued the conversation with the geth before things could get out of hand, "What do you mean, 'heretics'?"

"Geth build our own future. The heretics asked the Old Machines to give them the future. They are no longer part of us. We were studying the Old Machine's hardware to protect our future."

Prudii didn't understand that. "If the 'heretics' are doing the biding of the Reapers, why would they threaten to destroy you?"

"We are different from them. Outside their plans."

Shepard asked the geth something it stated before, "What future are the geth building?"

"Ours," still answering with just a single word.

Prudii had other concerns about this future, "Will this future affect organics?"

"If they involve themselves, they will."

Shepard wanted final clarification, "So you aren't allied with the Reapers?"

"We oppose the heretics. We oppose the Old Machines. Shepard-Commander opposes the Old Machines. Shepard-Commander opposes the heretics. Cooperation furthers mutual goals."

"Are you asking to join us?"

There was a slight pause, as the geth's faceplates opened slightly, "Yes."

"Shepard, sorry to say this, but are you insane? Trusting a droid? Their kind have been a plague on the galaxy."

Shepard couldn't see past Prudii's helmet, but he didn't want this to sour any relationship they might have, "We need every advantage we can get against the Collectors and the Reapers." Prudii didn't seem to agree with this decision but he wasn't going to push it any further, holstering his pistol as Shepard deactivated the barrier, "Then what should I call you?"

"Geth."

"I mean you. Specifically," hoping for a different answer from it.

"We are all geth."

Shepard tried to clarify to the geth once more, "What is the individual in front of me called?"

"There is no individual. We are geth. There are currently 1,183 programs active within this platform."

"Shepard, you're talking to a wall when it comes to this topic. The only thing this droid might have is a serial number. Unit: provide identification number."

Instead, EDI's blue holo-display appeared as she quoted, "My name is Legion, for we are many."

"That seems appropriate."

The geth's head plates flashed open as it accessed where the quote originated, "Christian Bible, the Gospel of Mark, chapter five, verse nine. We acknowledge this as an appropriate metaphor. We are Legion, a terminal of the geth. We will integrate into Normandy." Shepard extended his hand out to the geth. Legion slowly raised its hand as it looked up to Shepard who nodded to affirm the exchange. Legion grasped Shepard hand and shook, "We anticipate the exchange of data." With this over with, Prudii left to return to engineering to break the news to Tali.

* * *

"He what?"

Tali started to pace in front of her console as Prudii tried to speak with her, "_Udesii_, Tali. Look, I don't like it either. But this is Shepard's ship. If it makes you feel better, we can keep our eyes on the geth, and if it shows any sign of treachery, we scrap it. Unless that happens we just have to deal with it."

"That's going to be rather hard to do…"

"I know. This is the first time I've actually wanted to scrap a clanker so badly."

"Is that a bad thing?"

Prudii turned to look at the drive core, "Yeah. It means my feelings are affecting my judgment. That's never happened before, against droids, Geos or Trandos. They've died only because they were between us and the objective, never because I wanted them dead."

Tali place a hand on Prudii's fist, "We just have to be extra careful of the geth, just as you said." Prudii's fist loosened, turning his glace to her and nodding. Now all the crew had to do was wait for EDI to integrate the Reaper IFF and hope nothing bad happens in meanwhile.

* * *

It seemed Shepard had conversed with Legion, learning of a potential threat to the geth. The 'heretic' geth have a virus that would reprogram Legion's geth into following the Reapers, and Shepard has asked Tali for assistance. As the team gathered on the bridge while making their approach to the geth station, Joker couldn't help but question Legion's sense of tactics, "You know it's our heat emissions that are hidden, right? They could look out a window and see us coming."

"Windows are structural weaknesses. Geth do not use them. Approach the hull at these coordinates." Turing to the nearby terminal to give the data. "Access achieved. We may proceed." Joker started to act rather unusual as he stiffened his movement while his mouth open and shut until Shepard gave him a glare.

* * *

Traveling through the station, Legion started to cut away at another hatch until it opened. With the team in Legion moved first as it commented, "Alert. This facility has little air or gravity. Geth require neither."

The team anticipated such an outcome, with Shepard being the only one who needed to grab his helmet from the ship prior. "Little late for a warning, droid."

Shepard was more concerned about their entrance, "Won't we be detected? Don't they have intrusion alarms?"

"Sensors have been reduced. We have infiltrated their wireless network and filled the data storage with random bits."

"And that helps us how?"

Legion explained as best as it could to an organic, "The heretics must scrub this 'junk' data. They have partitioned themselves into local networks, working in parallel. Any alarm we trigger will not go beyond the room we are in. Only accessing the main core will trigger a station-wide alert."

"We've got a job to do. Let's get to it."

Just as Shepard passed Legion, the geth shouted, "Shepard-Commander. We concluded that destruction of this station was the only resolution to the heretic question. There is now a second option. Their virus can be repurposed. If released into the station's network, the heretics will be rewritten to accept our truth."

"Either way, these geth won't be a problem anymore." Though Tali moved closer to Shepard to whisper, "But Shepard, think about this. If we rewrite these geth, they'll join the others. Legion's geth will be stronger. Can we trust them not to attack us in the future?"

"That is a big gamble, Commander."

Shepard quickly questioned this sudden outburst, "Why didn't you mention this before we came aboard?"

"We did not know the virus was completed. It is. It can be used against the true geth at any time. Our arrival was timely."

Shepard wasn't sure about this new predicament. "They're your people, Legion. You must have an opinion."

"This is new data. We have not yet reached consensus. We will process as the mission proceeds."

Prudii finally put out his opinion on the matter, "Why should we feel wrong about this? Geth are machines. We give our droids memory wipes all of the time to keep them in check. If anything it's one of the better solutions besides blasting this place to dust. Doesn't mean I'm completely for it though, Commander."

"That is logical."

"You agree with that?" shocked by Legion's willingness to change his own people.

Legion quickly told Tali, "No two species are identical. All must be judged on their own merit. Treating every species like one's own is racist. Even benign anthropomorphism. The minds of both forms of life can be shaped. Organics require time and effort. With synthetics, replacement of a data file is the only requirement."

The team entered a small area where the geth were hooked up to a strange machine. "Looks like the geth are in standby mode."

Legion grabbed Prudii as he stopped him from stepping on a green highlighted path. "Interrupting data streams will alert local network. We recommend preemptive strikes against hardlink routers."

The team navigated around the path as they prepared to destroy the three geth. Prudii handed Shepard a frag grenade as he and Legion lined up their targets. Shepard rolled the grenade to the feet of the hunter. The detonation caused the hub to explode, sending the three geth flying. The geth were left utterly vulnerable to the squad in their attempted to grabbed their weapons and compensate for their slow descent.

Tali's omni-tool started detecting something, "Shepard, I'm picking up useful resources in the geth hubs. We could salvage them for supplies."

As the team moved closer, Shepard asked their geth about the situation, "Why are all the heretics attached to these hubs?"

"These are mobile platforms. Hardware. The crew is software. They are communing through the station's central computer."

"I'm not sure I follow."

Legion continued on as he explained from his own perspective, "The heretics connect to the main computer to exchange data-memories and program updates. We gain complexity by linking together. To be isolated within a single platform is to be reduced. We see less. Comprehend less. It is quieter."

"So droid, if you exchange your memories, how do you keep all of that data separated for identification? How do you stay yourself?"

Legion was unsure about Prudii's questions. "There is only 'we'. We were created to share data among ourselves. The difference between geth is perspective. We are many eyes looking at the same things. One platform will see things another does not and will make different judgments."

Shepard turned back to the geth, "I can see why you'd be conflicted about the heretics. In a way, whatever you do to them, you're doing to yourself."

"Yes. Once they return to us and upload their memories, we will share their experience of being altered."

"Every other species I know of might be psychologically scarred by a traumatic experience like that."

Legion's face plates lifted slightly, "It is not clear if geth can be 'traumatized'. We do not feel pain as you do. We cannot predict what the effect will be."

"Let's keep moving."

"Yes."

* * *

"No. Please wait. If you would just look at the evident then you could see…" Pyth's call to Matriarch was disconnected by the Matriarch. "A pity. One would think a species with such a long lifespan would be more open-minded about these things. Greetings, Rang. I assume your last job was successful."

"How could you tell?"

She turned to him to explain, "You hum an altered version of _Dha Werda Verda_ in your head when you're happy or excited."

"Well I blame this galaxy and its lack of mind-reader."

"Though I suspect you never really protected your mind before recent events either."

Rang finished removing his armor as he grabbed a bottle of whisky, "Well yeah. We've never had enemies who could indoctrinate people just by being there."

"Fair enough."

"So, your meeting with that matriarch didn't go so well, huh?"

Pyth continued to smile, "Well the one you speak of completely ignored my calls. The last one was barely willing to speak with me. I have another four-hundred and seventy-two that are listed that I can try contacting. I must admit though, the last forty were rather rude. I can't blame them for not wanting to believe me, given that I have no history here. Well that and I think the twenty or so papers I published before my third doctorate helped with my certification."

"Damn." Rang pulled out some of Pyth's research notes, "For someone who's expected to live for a thousand years, you've done a lot in your time."

"Actually the average lifespan for a Draethos is roughly eight-hundred standard years. Many short-lived species though don't usually notice the difference. Even so, I don't like squandering my available time so I study, research or even explore new possibilities."

"Hmm. Want a swig?"

Pyth gently pushed Rang's arm back, "No thank you. I prefer to keep as many of my brain cells available for my studies."

"I'll take it." A biotic field now enveloped the bottle as it flew into Nyona's hand. "I told you, if you wanted those egotistical bitches to listen you should name-drop Aria T'Lok. No one says no to her, if they want to stay in power."

"I appreciate the offer of assistance, but using contacts I have no true connection to feels like cheating."

"And your point?"

Pyth smiled, though her teeth made that distinction rather difficult to discern. "I would rather have my work be judged by my own merit not because the word of another can 'vouch for it'. Call me old fashioned."

"Yeah, but without someone willing to overview your work you'll never gain merit."

"Quite true, Rang. That just means I'll have to expand my attempt beyond the asari."

* * *

Lissarkh isolated herself again as she tried to quiet her mind, but the visions continued to appear to her, as the echoes of the galaxy seemed to only help amplify these images that were burned into her mind. Finding her center became more of a maze as she struggled to forget all of the death. _Are these the monstrosities that await us, the nightmares that will overtake us? No! There is always a solution. It simply has not presented itself to us, though time is not on our side._

* * *

Clearing another group of geth, the squad found a silent area. Prudii scouted the hallway. "These look like Sep databases."

Legion corrected him, "Processors. Each contains thousands of geth."

Prudii still didn't like this situation, "Can they see us, geth?" training his rifle to the window.

"They are no more aware of us than you are of cells in your bloodstream."

Shepard noticed a difference though, "This isn't like the other hubs we've seen here."

"This is a database. It contains a portion of the heretics' accumulated memories." Legion started to scan through the different databases. Legion noticed an unexpected anomaly, "Wait." Information was pulled from one of the processors as it moved closer to them, "We discovered copies of our current patrol routes in this database. This suggests the heretics have runtimes within our networks."

"You're surprised, geth. You don't think they'd want to keep tabs on you for the Reapers?"

Legion still couldn't wrap its processes round this data, "You do not understand. Organics do not know each other's minds. Geth do. We are not suspicious. We accept each other. The heretics desired to leave. We understood their reasons. We allowed it. There was peace between us."

Shepard agreed with Prudii about this, "It couldn't have lasted forever. You disagreed about what path your race should take."

"Human history is a litany of blood shed over differing ideals of rulership and afterlife. Geth have no such history. We share consensus on such things." Legion seemed conflicted now, "How could we have become so different? Why can we no longer understand each other? What did we do wrong?"

Shepard wasn't sure if there was anything to help it, but he might have an answer for the geth at least. "When individuals are separated, they develop in different ways. When they get back together, they don't always get along."

"If this is the individuality you value, we question your judgment. This topic is irrelevant. We must return to the mission."

As Legion was about to leave, Shepard stop it and asked, "Have you reached a decision about whether to rewrite the heretics or not?"

"We are still trying to build consensus. Some processes judge destruction preferable. Others rewrite."

* * *

**A/N: **Just going to go on record now and say that I won't have the Mandalorians interaction during Project Overlord, Lair of the Shadow Broker, or Arrival, partly out of timing and these seemed more like things Shepard does with only the Normandy crew. So as soon as the Suicide Mission is over, the Mandos will have a part to play in Invasion. Until then...

**Mando'a Translation:**

Udesii(oo-DAY-see)- Calm down

Dha Werda Verda(dah WAIR-dah VAIR-dah)- Rage of the Shadow Warriors


	62. All ashore

**A/N: **I've been having a major writer's block on my other stories. Sorry to those waiting for them. I'm trying. Now that I'm on my fifth playthrough, I finished venting and want to say that I don't want Bioware to change the ending too drasticlly(well except for the Normandy thing maybe and the starchild) but I do want more closer like how Dragon Age: Origins did with the epilogues for characters and the different factions/races(though it would be nice to see a video of them).

* * *

The squad found a lone console above a maze like passage guarded by a number of inactive turrets. As Prudii kept his eye on the lower level, Shepard and Legion gathered in front of the console. "This is it?"

"Yes. We will upload a copy of our runtime into the core. It will delete all copies of the virus. When complete, it will notify us." Shepard tried to interact with the console only for a static charge to zap his finger. "The indexing operation will take time. The heretics will respond with force to our upload. We must hold this room." Legion began interfacing with the console, "We can override some of the station's internal systems to defend us. Are you ready to begin?"

"Start your upload, Legion. We'll defend this position."

Legion's faceplates flashed open as it started to process, "File transfer begun. Shepard-Commander, where would you like us to activate defenses?"

Prudii grabbed his DC's sniper barrel as he saw the lights on the floor turn from green to red. "Geth. Which flank you sniping?"

Legion grabbed the sniper rifle Shepard had helped construct, "We will cover the flank you do not oversee."

Prudii watched as the first of the geth started to enter the area. Lining up the shot, Prudii took the kill. "Guess I've got left."

* * *

Doctor Liara T'Soni, a former companion of Commander Shepard while captain of the SSV Normandy, now information broker on Illium, continued to siphon through her contacts for any information on the location of the Shadow Broker. As she followed one of these lead she was contacted by the Mandalorians. "Yes?"

The feed had a man with red hair and a big grin, "T'Soni. What's it been, three months now?"

"Not now Rang. I was expecting a call from your brother, Beviin. If you don't mind, I am busy with some rather important work."

"Wait, wait, wait! It involves the Protheans." Liara immediately pulled her hand away from the console. "Thought that might get your attention."

"If this is another one of your jokes…"

"It's not, I swear." Rang stepped out of view for a moment but quickly returned. "I have uh, an associate, who thinks she has cracked the Prothean language."

"I wouldn't say cracked more like chipped but…" The female's voice was unusual to say the least but Liara shrugged it off as possibly transmission lag.

"Anyway, Dr. T'Soni, I'd like you to meet Professor Silis Pyth."

As Rang stepped off, a light-blue scaled alien with a rather bulbous cranium and outstanding front teeth was now on the terminal. "A pleasure to finally meet you doctor. I've read all of your published articles on the Protheans, fascinating reads all of them, though a bit romanticized if you don't mind me saying. Actually, I've found several articles on the Protheans rather romanticized as they're compared to the asari culture. Though I did find the one involving a human named Shepard and these beacons most interesting."

"Excuses me, but what exactly are you?"

"Yes even in my home galaxy that question often comes up. To answer your question, I am a Drathos. But enough about me, we should discuss more about my work deciphering the Prothean language."

Liara was hesitant to believe this unknown but given the fact that she was with the Mandalorians it seemed to compensate her other worries, evening it out. "I'm interested in knowing how you came to an accurate decryption of a language lost for over 50,000 years."

"Very interestingly actually. I've studied a number of dead languages in my studies. The hardest part about translating them is finding a link that could help breakdown said language. It also helps to know the species biological classification of which the language derived from. We have recently stumbled upon evidence suggesting the Prothean are insectoids of some form. Based off that, I compared the written language to all known insectoid, arachnoid, and crustacean languages from my home galaxy. Eventually I found the pattern. It's slightly iffy here and there but I can assure you most of the decryption is accurate."

"How many languages did you use as a reference?"

"I had over seventy living sapient races to compare them to. Like I said, it wasn't hard once I found the pattern. Just making sure it was the pattern was the hard part."

Liara's systems soon noticed outside hacking attempts trying to listen in on them. "I think we should continue our discussion in person rather than over these channels."

"If you insist, doctor. When they can, I'll ask the Mandalorians to drop me off at your office. I look forward to our exchange, Dr. T'Soni."

As the feed terminated, Liara couldn't help but think about all of the new information that could be learned about the Protheans if this information proved to be reliable, though her work to find the Shadow Broker seemed to have kept her emotions in check as she scrubbed the loose ends in her firewalls.

* * *

Chiktikka and Legion's combat drones distracted the heretic geth as the rocket turrets broke through the Prime's defenses, leaving it vulnerable to Prudii and Legion's sniper rifles. Shepard fired a concussion shot at one of the troopers as Tali finished it by draining its energy. Legion fired again, terminating the last geth. The console started to beep as Legion reloaded, "Datamine and analysis complete. Shepard-Commander. It is time to choose. Do we rewrite the heretics, or delete them?"

Shepard was hesitant about the decision, questioning Legion's resolve, "You don't have any trouble wiping out your own people?"

"Every sapient has the right to make their own decisions. The heretics chose a path that prohibits coexistence."

Tali still couldn't grasp at Legion's logic. "That doesn't make sense. If they 'have the right to make their own decisions,' how can you suggest brainwashing them to accept your way?"

"We stated the option exists. We did not endorse it. It is Shepard-Commander's decision."

Prudii looked down at the carnage and 'bodies' left after the fighting, "So what guarantee do we have that prevents them from using the virus again to turn on you."

"We will delete the virus after using it. We judge it too dangerous to allow it existence."

"But won't remnants remain from its use?"

"No. The virus is undetectable to geth processes. Nothing of the virus will remain."

Shepard had one last question for Legion, "Why are you letting me make this decision? They're your people."

"We are conflicted. There is no consensus among our higher-order runtimes: 573 favor rewrite, and 571 favor destruction. Shepard-Commander. You have fought the heretics. You have perspective we lack. The geth grant their fate to you."

"Why not ask Prudii instead? He's had more experience fighting geth than me."

"Yes. Prudii Tervho and the Mandalorians have engaged heretic forces more than Shepard-Commander. Addendum: However they were hired by Alliance forces to exterminate heretic outposts and counter heretic assaults. Official records indicate that they have not encountered geth actively working for the Old Machines beyond the Battle of the Citadel. We do not mean to offend."

Prudii just shrugged it off, "None taken. Your right though. We only fought geth because we were paid to. Doubt I'd have better insight than the Commander."

"True, but you and your brothers have said you've fought against droids before you arrived to the Citadel."

Prudii wasn't as confident about that. "The only real 'intelligent' droids we fought against were commandos and tactical droids. The others are more comparable to security mechs with military grade hardware. All were programmed to kill. Geth have freewill, the desire to live. Big differences. But Commander, sometimes when it comes to machines, you've got to think with your head rather than listening to your heart."

Shepard turned back to Legion now, "There's no guarantee they won't come to the same conclusions again, is there? To worship the Reapers, and attack organics?"

"There is a non-zero probability of error."

Shepard turned to Prudii to which the commando told him, "The geth can make more programs later. If they're destroyed, we don't have to worry about the 'true' geth being altered by the virus, or heretic memories."

"Blow them up then. I don't want to risk the virus, or the heretics potentially turning your people to work for the Reapers."

"Acknowledged." Legion's faceplates opened out as it started to access the terminal, "Collapsing antimatter magnetic bottling mechanisms." As it did, the faceplates closed one by one, in sequence with the mechanisms. "Done. Recommend withdrawal to Normandy."

The station violently shock from an internal explosion. Legion alerted the team to the three minute threshold they had to evacuate the station alive. The team rushed to the door Legion unlocked leading to a new docking port. At the end of the passage way a group of geth troopers were attempting to stop them from escaping. Legion took care of the first one with its sniper rifle as Tali hack one. As the geth turned on the last unit, Shepard and Prudii assisted in gunning it down. With it down, Prudii finished the hacked geth, using his vibroblade while placing a few rounds into its back.

Prudii's shield flickered for a few seconds as more shots were fired from his left. The commando threw the defunct geth unit at the new group as he took cover. As the geth recovered from losing their footing Legion constructed a combat drone to distract the geth units long enough for the squad to take them out.

As they continued, Legion halted as it extended its arms out to stop Shepard, Tali and Prudii. "Prime unit detected. We advise caution."

They still had about two minutes left, so they couldn't drag this fight out too long. "Any suggestions?"

"One." Legion swapped the sniper rifle out for the geth pulse rifle it carried. Legion started to fire on the Prime as it hacked a trooper to the Prime's right. Tali quickly caught on as she hacked the second trooper, forcing the Prime to deploy a combat drone for assistance. As the drone attempted to pacify the other units long enough for the geth to undo the hack the Prime attacked Legion. The team concentrated their fire on the Prime easily overcoming the giant. Tali blasted the geth she hacked just as Prudii rammed a vibroblade into the face of the other geth. Shepard opened the hatch to the Normandy with the team close behind him. The hatch closed and Joker pulled away from the station just as the antimatter caused the station to explode violently.

* * *

Tali and Prudii entered the AI core to find Legion simply standing as it acknowledged their presence. "Creator-Tali'Zorah. Prudii Tervho."

Tali however armed herself with a pistol she took from the armory as she moved to question the geth, "So, Legion. There are a few things I want to clear up with you."

Prudii soon noticed something rather strange with Legion's faceplates. "What's it doing?"

"My omni-tool!" Tali pulled the pistol on Legion, placing it atomically where a heart would be in an organic. Prudii grabbed his bowcaster aiming at the geth, ready to kill it should the geth try to anything against her. Prudii moved so he had a better angle on the geth without harming Tali just as the door opened. Tali turned slightly to confirm who it was, "Shepard. I'm glad you're here. I caught Legion scanning my omni-tool. It was going to send data about the flotilla back to the geth!"

Legion then justified its actions, "Creators performed weapons tests and were discussing plans to attack us. We believed it necessary to warn our people."

"We weakened the geth by destroying that base, Shepard, but they're still a threat! I won't let Legion endanger the Fleet!"

"Creator-Tali'Zorah acts out of loyalty to her people. She was willing to be exiled to protect them. We must also protect our people from the Creator threat."

"You can't let this happen, Shepard. I trusted you, and I worked with a geth on the team, but this is too much!"

Shepard wasn't going to let this continue any further, "Tali, your father was running brutal experiments. If the subjects had been human, I'd damn will be telling the Alliance about it."

Tali arm almost lowered away from Legion, but she continued to keep the pistol on Legion's chest region, in spite of her disheartened feeling about the truth. "I know. But if the geth find out…"

"They'd attack. Which would cause a war that would leave both the geth and the quarians vulnerable when the Reapers show up. Is that what you want, Legion?"

Legion faceplates flashed, knowing it to be one possibility the consensus might reach. "We believed it was necessary to relay the information."

Shepard finally told both of them plain out, "Sooner or later, you're both gonna have to stop fighting this war. Or we'll all end up paying for it."

There was a pause between the two before Legion finally turned to Tali, "To facilitate unit cohesion, we will not transmit data regarding Creator plans." Prudii lowered the bowcaster as he locked the trigger and released his grip on the weapon.

Tali also lowered the pistol away from Legion, "Thank you, Legion. I…understand your intention." Tali thought about a compromise for her rude behavior just now. "What if I gave you some non-classified data to send?"

"We would be grateful." Tali then started to create a small package to send to Legion for the geth.

As Tali left, Prudii turned back to Legion. "Geth… Legion. Next mission, we should see who's the better sharpshooter…"

"There is no need for such trivial competition."

"Just humor me and do it. Something I'm actually missing from my old days. Whoever gets the most kills wins, and difficult or trick shots earn three points. Any kills with an assault rifle don't count."

Legion's lights started to glow brighter until the faceplate flashed open, "Parameters set. Next mission when we are together, we will register the scores. Should we also include Garrus Vakarian in this competition?"

"If you want." Prudii then walked out, "See you around, Commander."

"I wasn't expecting you to get chummy with Legion so quickly."

Prudii stopped as he fell silent for a moment. "I let my feelings interfere with my judgment when we first encountered it."

"And now?"

"Just doing my job. Protecting Tali."

"But your employer is dead."

Prudii was hesitant knowing what he had told Shepard before. "My duty is to protect Tali until she returns home to the Fleet. Paid for in advance by Admiral Rael'Zorah. She hasn't returned to the Fleet so my job isn't over yet." Prudii then walked away before Shepard could ask any other questions.

* * *

The Mandalorians had returned to Illium for a number of reasons, and as members traveled their separate ways, Bev questioned his unwanted followers, "Rang, I've got a busy schedule planned. I don't want you to get involved."

"_Olaro bat, vod_. _Gar kar'tayli tion'solet ni guuro_ asari."

"_Get as dush as_ Twi'leks. _Bal kaysh_?"

"_Jorcu_, uh… _kaysh gana tionase bat_ Protheans, _ni mirdi mhi enteyo hiibi_ T'Soni." Pyth was distracted by the architecturally design of the asari building to even pay any attention to the clones or their discussion.

Bev normally wouldn't let them continue any further but he didn't have the time to argue against it. The trio walked into Liara's office, though Rang and Bev noticed something out of place. "T'Soni. I've got that data were looking for. Unfortunately it didn't give anything useful about your target."

Liara reviewed the data on her terminal, and as Bev had stated, nothing she was looking for. "Thank you for sparing the time to decrypt it for me neither the less."

Bev nodded and left the office, having other priorities on hand. "Hey T'Soni, how's our favorite info broker? Say, what happened to that lovely assistant of yours, Nyxeris. Her desk is awfully empty."

"She and I had a…falling out."

"Too bad, wish you could've got the fight on vid. Now that'd been something."

Pyth cleared her throat before interrupting, "A pleasure to finally meet you in person, Dr. T'Soni," reaching a hand out to shake. After Liara shook the hand, Pyth took a seat as she pulled up a briefcase and activated her omni-tool, "Now I would like to overview my work on the Protheans."

* * *

Inside the Eternity lounge, Rasen was sitting alone in a booth overlooking the spectacular view of the Nos Astra and the setting sun. Rasen had received a few nasty glares by some of the other patrons, but she didn't care, she was waiting for someone. One of them was about to say something to her until the clanking of heavy armor started to echo in the air. The turian felt the weight of an arm on his shoulder. Without even turning to the unknown figure, the turian walked back to his drink. Rasen turned and greeted her guest, "Glad you came."

"Wouldn't have missed it for the galaxy. You know, if you were wearing your Mandalorian armor, you wouldn't have had to worry about all of these stares or that _lararyc_."

Rasen couldn't help but continue to gaze at the setting sun, "I know. But sometimes I think they fear it more than they do me."

"Quarians aren't exactly known for violent outburst. Mandalorians are."

"I think Rang and Vren are to blame for that," laughing at all of the memories of the two drunk and their fights that ensued. "It's good to have some quality time like this. Just the two of us, Bev."

Bev grabbed a hold of one of Rasen's hands, "I don't think we'll have anything interrupting us for some time now."

* * *

"These crowds are like Omega, though not as rundown and fewer bodies on the floor."

Tare wasn't expecting Forta to react like this, knowing he's been on Illium before. "Why are you thinking about your home all of a sudden?"

Forta started to lean against the guard rail, "Don't know. Just feel like it I suppose. I guess after all of that trouble with Rasen and the Migrant Fleet I'm actually starting to feel a bit homesick myself."

"But we were on Omega not too long ago. And you even visited a few places before we left."

"I know, Tare. But just seeing a place doesn't always help." Forta leaned forward slightly to look at the lower levels and the busy people, "Hey don't worry about me. I've got a new life with you guys. A family that I care for and who care for me."

Tare smiled as he nodded, "Right." Now Tare started to lean against the railing, "Nice sunset."

"Yeah. Kinda shame that all of these people are so busy they don't take the time to notice it every now and then."

Forta couldn't help himself as he started to laugh. "What? What'd you see?"

"No, no. Nothing down there, I was just thinking. A batarian who's friends with a quarian marine."

"You can also put on that list a korgan, an asari commando, an ex-turian fighter pilot, and a bunch of humans."

"Yeah, your right. That day Rasen and Bev came to my door, looking back now, I think that was the best thing to have ever happened in my life."

* * *

**A/N: **If no one couldn't tell, I was having a really hard debate about the heretics situation. I wouldn't have felt so bad about killing the heretics if Shepard did say something like above, it just the way he said it in ME2 I didn't like is all. I'm making an ammendment to a previous statment last chapter, I think I might do the DLC stories, though I've got to think about it more and see how they play out in my head.

**Mando'a Translation:**

Olaro bat, vod. Gar kar'tayli tion'solet ni guuro asari.(oh-LAR-oh baht, vohd. gahr kar-TIE-lee Tee-ON-soh-LAYT nee GOO-roh asari.)- Come on, bro. You know how much I like asari.

Get as dush as Twi'leks. Bal kaysh?(get sah doosh sah Twi'leks. bahl kaysh?)- Almost as bad as Twi'leks. And her?

Jorcu, uh… kaysh gana tionase bat Protheans, ni mirdi mhi enteyo hiibi T'Soni.(JOR-koo, uh… kaysh GAN-a tee-OH-nahs-ay baht Protheans, nee MEER-dee mee EN-tay-OH HEE-bee T'Soni)- Becasue, uh… she's has questions about the Protheans, I thought we were obliged to take her to T'Soni.

lararyc(lah-rah-eesh)- drunk(lit. carousing)


	63. The storm is brewing

**A/N: **I've been having a major writer's block on my other stories. Sorry to those waiting for them. I'm trying. Now that I'm on my fifth playthrough, I finished venting and want to say that I don't want Bioware to change the ending too drasticlly(well except for the Normandy thing maybe and the starchild) but I do want more closer like how Dragon Age: Origins did with the epilogues for characters and the different factions/races(though it would be nice to see a video of them).

* * *

EDI reported to the crew that instillation of the Reaper IFF was nearly completed. She requested to do more thorough analysis before attempting to travel through the Omega 4 Replay. Shepard agreed with her recommendation as Miranda notified the rest of the team they were using the shuttle to travel to their next destination.

As the team gathered into the shuttle, Prudii couldn't help but question this course of action, "Sir, shouldn't some of us stay?"

"What's the matter, you don't trust EDI?"

Prudii turned back to the window to the engineering deck, "No. She actually reminds me of _Atonement_'s computers. I just don't think it wise to leave with the ship's best fighters."

Mordin hopped on board as Shepard noted, "If you want, you could always stay."

Prudii remained silent for a moment before turning back to Shepard, "I'll take my chance cramped with the krogan." With the UT-47 now maxed to capacity, the shuttle departed to their intended destination.

* * *

Inside the _Tervho_ Vren was fine-tuning the Z-6 blaster cannon, tweaking his prior adjustments. Aay'han found the krogan alone in his room as many other Mandalorians took shore leave on Illium. Aay'han tapped the wall to grab Vren's attention, "Permission to enter."

"Come on it."

Aay'han quickly noticed the Blood Pack armor. "So this composite is your collection?" Aay'han started to look around the quarter. "Who are you bunked with?"

"I share it with Forta and Jace. Both are good guys, for their species. They tolerate me and my collection." Aay'han could see the armor came from several different sets, examining the clear signs of forced removal, all slapped together on the mannequin.

"You gonna get a replacement piece for that missing shoulder guard?"

Vren started to flex his right shoulder before picking up the blaster cannon. "No need. Actually I think I've got another thing to thank that maw for, freeing up my shoulder a bit for my new toy."

"Well the General says nothing ever happens without a reason."

Vren grunted with a smirk, "Well tell her that she's too much of a thinker sometimes."

* * *

As enjoyable as their outing had been, Bev finally asked her something that's been bothering him for some time. "Rasen, why didn't you exonerate yourself back on the Fleet?"

"I…I don't know what you're talking about," turning away to the sunset.

Bev gently grabbed her hand, "Don't lie to me. Even if you were sending geth components to the Fleet at Prudii's request, you would have made a manifesto of the parts. Why didn't you bring it up to the Admirals?"

Rasen forced herself to look into Bev's visor as she replied, "I see you can still read me like a datapad. I planned to, initially, but when the Rayya's security chief told us Tali was also being charged with treason on the same grounds, I guess I didn't want to let her face it alone. Or maybe because Prudii was there I thought…actually I'm not sure what I thought then. I'm such an idiot…"

"No. You were trying to help Tali. Admiral Raan set the situation so she could allow her to investigate the Alarei, though it could have been executed differently. I think subconsciously, you hoped Prudii might convince Aran to help, though none of us expected him to snap at Koris like that."

"I'm sorry I put him, everyone, through all of that."

Bev grabbed the glass, "Don't. Araniik would have probably offered assistance even if you did provide that data to clear yourself. Still, I think it was nice that you were willing to go through all of that just so we would help Tali."

"Well, when you put it like that, it sounds like I planned it from the beginning."

"Then, to family and our continued victory."

"I'd like that." Rasen raised her glass and joined his toast.

* * *

As Shepard piloted the Kodiak, Garrus moved to Prudii, "So, Legion tells me you were planning to do a competition or something."

Legion approached them, "Yes. Prudii Tervho asked us to compete in a competition of our sharpshooting capabilities. Our restriction is to use sniper rifles exclusively. Prudii Tervho did not restrict this competition to just between us. We assumed Garrus Vakarian would want to participate as well."

"Well I think you've got yourself an extra competitor." Just then the Kodiak made a sharp turn. "What's going on, Shepard?"

"We're returning to the _Normandy_."

* * *

Returning to an empty ship, Joker and EDI were waiting in the conference room as Miranda finished her inspection, "Everyone? You lost everyone—and damn near lost the ship, too?"

"I know, all right? I was here!"

Jacob tried to defend Joker, "It's not his fault, Miranda. None of us caught it."

"Mr. Taylor is correct. The harmful data in the Collector drive was even more sophisticated than the 'black box' Reaper viruses I was given."

Shepard was more concerned about his friend, "I heard it was a rough ride. How are you holding up?"

"There's a lot of empty chairs in here," staying true to his nickname.

EDI tried to assure Joker, "We did everything we could, Jeff."

"Yeah, thanks, Mom," looking even more depressed now.

"Is the ship clean? We can't risk this happening again."

"EDI and I purged the systems. The Reaper IFF is online. We can go through the Omega 4 relay whenever you want."

Miranda still had a scowl on her face, "Don't even get me started about unshackling a damned AI."

"Well what could I do against Collectors, break my arm at them? EDI cleared the ship. She's all right."

'I assure you, I am still bound by protocols in my programming. Even if I were not, you are my crewmates."

"If she's anything like _Atonement_'s computer she'll protect us," an unexpected defense coming from the commando.

Shepard agreed with Prudii, "EDI has had plenty of opportunity to kill us. We need all the help we can get."

Jacob was ready for the mission, "Sounds like we have everything we need to rescue the crew."

Miranda couldn't see agree more, "We've done everything we can. It's time to take the fight to the Collectors."

"Joker, head back up to the bridge. The rest of you, to your stations."

Joker saluted, "Aye, aye, Commander. Just punch up the galaxy map when you're ready."

Prudii stopped Shepard, "Commander. I know the Mandalorians don't really want to do anything with Cerberus, but your ship just lost over eighty percent of her crew. Not even enough for a skeleton crew."

"What are you saying?"

"If you're willing to wait a few minutes at Omega, I might be able to get us a few more hands for this crazy mission."

* * *

"What? How can you say that?"

Pyth remained call in spite of the situation she brought about. "We cannot let preconceptions and your own species' cultural similarities cloud the facts. A fact I have seen happen in many Prothean related articles. Prominently in papers written by asari I might add."

"Oh, this is getting good. I should've brought popcorn."

"Another point, most believe the Protheans to be the only spacefaring race of their time. I personally have a hard time believing such a statement. Given the rich biodiversity of current spacefaring races, I cannot believe there were not others who mastered the stars along sides these Protheans. There must be an explanation we have yet to uncover."

Rang suddenly received a message from Prath on his personal comlink, "To all Mandalorians on Illium. We have received an emergency message from Prudii. I will go over the details when everyone has returned. Please come, posthaste."

Rang quickly got up from his seat before grabbing Pyth's shoulder, "Well this has been fun and all, but we've got to get back to the ship. Now."

"How unfortunate." Pyth stood up as she bowed to Liara, "Well it has been a pleasure, Dr. T'Soni. I do hope we can continue our discussion on a later date."

* * *

The Mandalorians were now debating about what they should do. "Why the hell should we help Cerberus?"

"Because Prudii asked."

Palva also chimed in, reminding the crew, "And that should be enough to forget about everything Cerberus has ever done?"

Rang corrected himself, "Oh hell no. We should never forget about all of those twisted experiments and what they've tried to do to us, but look at the opportunity given to us."

"What opportunity?"

Nyona pulled up an image, "A chance of a lifetime. To do something both stupid and crazy; to wipe out the Collectors and survive the Omega 4 relay."

Rang also added, "This is the kind of opportunities Mandalorians seek, the chance to fight a worthy foe and defeat them. Win or lose, we fight the best with the best and we all go down in infamy."

The others fell silent as they thought about it. Nyona was right of course and they knew it. Aran finally spoke out after seeing the uncertainty in many of them, "I don't expect everyone to join us, but Sigma Squad doesn't leave a man behind. If you want in, meet me in the hangar in two."

Aran left them as he grabbed his gear. He waited for two minutes in his room thinking of the few who would join him, his brothers; Bev, Rang, Aay'han, Dagger and his crew, Lissarkh, maybe Rasen and Tare at least. He didn't mind if the others didn't want to join, he knew this mission could very well be a one way trip. Aran gave the team an extra minute before riding down the elevator. The doors opened to reveal the entire crew waiting for him.

Prath waddled up to Araniik, "Do not underestimate yourself, Araniik. Everyone on this ship will follow you to the end of time."

"To which we have to restrict our numbers." Dagger turned back, "The gunship's only made to carry thirty fully geared troopers. And we've got at least fifty here."

"Well Prath's not going. Sorry for cutting you so quickly."

"No need, Araniik. I know you never recruited me to fight, but if I could, I would now."

"Well the _Normandy_ lost most of her crew…Palva, have your best medical team ready to go. She'll probably need a few navigators and engineers."

"And fighters," Jorgal and Drok rammed their heads together expecting to join.

Dagger wasn't so sure, "Weight wise, a single krogan is probably worth three men."

"And as fighters they're worth ten each. Maybe fourteen in Vren's case."

As Mandalorians got onboard, Rang stopped one of them, "Hold there Mace. What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm going with you guys."

"Not with a kid a few months away. What about Heather? You're staying on the _Tervho_."

Mace pushed Rang's arm off, "Hey you're the one who said this is why Mandalorians fight. And I'm not going to say I stayed on the sidelines."

Rang put on his usual fun self as he remarked, "Trust me, if this Reaper war is going to anything like I imagine it's going to be, then there'll be plenty of opportunities for us, individually and as a team. Besides Omega 4 is the ultimate in suicide missions, wouldn't want to risk you. Especially with the kid coming soon."

Mace finally agreed, "Fine, but you better come back alive."

Aran grabbed Rang as he promised, "That's why I'm here, to keep guys like him from killing themselves. I don't plan on losing anyone to these Collectors."

* * *

With a full complement, the gunship departed from the _Tervho_ with Prath and the remaining Mandalorians waving them off. Having made contact with the _Normandy_ the hangar opened for them to land. They had little room for the ship to land thanks in part to all of the turbines on the floor. Rook and Jak's turret pods had to pulled up just so they could land. The best they could do was land beneath the UT-47.

The port doors opened only for them to be greeted by a machine, "Geth!"

The team grabbed their weapons to dismantle it, but Prudii stepped in to stop them, "Hold fire! It's with us!"

"_Gar jorhaa'i beskar'ad_!"

"I'll explain later. Just trust me."

Aran was the first to lower his weapon, "Mandalorians. _Moti diryci_."

The geth continued to stare at the group, unwavering by the number of guns just pointed at it and unarmed. "Creator-Rasen'Doran. Creator-Tare'Nara. We do not wish hostilities. We oppose the Old Machines."

"It means the Reapers."

Forta was confused now, "Wait a minute. I thought the geth worship the Reapers like gods?"

The geth's faceplates stated to flap as it answered, "No. Geth wish to build our future. The heretics accepted the Old Machines' offer to build them a future."

"We call it Legion, for convenience sake. And, _Normandy_ has a computer similar to _Atonement_."

C3 rolled out as she started to beep and whistle. Soon a voice responded to her call, "It is a pleasure to meet you R4-C3. You may call me EDI."

"Another AI…"

Jak pat Rasen on the back, "Hey look on the bright side, it could be worse."

"How could it be worse?"

"We could have a ship full of angry clankers," Rang semi-joked.

Shepard, Garrus and some of the others now exited the elevator to greet their extra hands. "Welcome aboard, Araniik."

"It's a pleasure, Commander. Just wish we could do something about the bugs, but I guess we don't have the luxury of time. Just show us the stations and we'll start manning them."

Rang stopped before he entered the elevator, "Oh, Prudii. I grabbed this just for you." Rang tossed a canister to Prudii. "Black spray paint for that new sniper rifle. Yeah, I know not the best paint for guns, but a decent substitute for the time being."

* * *

The crew had two hours to prepare before they reached the Omega 4 relay. Garrus pulled a few strings with a few C-Sec contacts to ship him a new set of armor along with a dual-input communication headset. Lawson also acquired new equipment just for this mission. Jet black armor of composite ceramic along with orange highlights and visor.

The Mandalorians were prepared for the worst, Palva and the medics brought their own supplies of medical equipment as they rearranged the medbay for easy access and multiple injured. Shepard was in his cabin as he psyched himself. Rang was busy making sure all of his explosives were good to go while checking the LJ charges and making few more 'emergency' grenades. Bev, Dagger and Kix were interested in seeing the Normandy's cockpit seeing if the current pilot needed any extra hands. Swoop, with the help of Forta, were able to have the LAAT/i hang on one of the clamps ready for use when needed.

Lissarkh took this time to meditate alongside Samara in the observation deck. Lissarkh sat beside Samara and initiated a conversation. "You are a justicar?"

"Yes. You must be another Mandalorian, correct?"

"No. I am Jedi in Mandalorian armor. I have learned all I could from what is publicly available about justicars. Your code is rather strict, both on you and those you pass judgment upon."

Samara did not flinch as she responded, "There is no room for interpretation. If I follow the Code I am just, if I don't them I am unjust."

"But as a protector of the innocent you may very well be harming those you might normally be sworn to protect if you do not investigate situations further than the apparent scenario."

"And the Code would then require I kill them should I find they are unjust."

Lissarkh turned her gaze from the stars to Samara, "If you were not so ready to kill every 'criminal' and were more investigative, you might remind me of my Master. You are strong but the Code is too strict for every situation. Without the ability to adapt, your Code will fail you someday, as it has led to the destruction of my order."

* * *

While the two warriors of justice got to know one another Garrus, Rook and Prudii were making a few last minute calibrations to the Thanix Cannons. "You sure you don't want my help, scales?"

"I think I know a thing or two about calibrations."

Rook took a crack at it, "Are you sure? Check now."

"I'd be impressed if I didn't know how to do this."

Rook scoffed, "I calibrate all of the lasers on the gunship. I know a few tricks that can beat that."

Garrus laughed, "Oh you're serious now. Then I better pull out the big guns." Prudii had enough of the two arguing and calibrated the guns himself. He gave the two of them time to review his calibrations before leaving. "Well looks like we know who the king of calibrations is."

"Dagger and Swoop use to talk about how Prudii was always making sure his sniper rifle was ready for almost any scenario, I guess this proves it."

* * *

Kasumi was sharing a few drinks with Nyona having little care in the world despite the danger they were about to fly into. Zaeed and the krogans were sharing a few stories of past battles, trying to one up the other as Grunt listened in on all of them. Rasen and Tali were working together in engineering alongside Legion and C3, each having to ensure the other; Tali had to be assured about C3 and Rasen about Legion. "I can't believe we're working with a geth."

"I can't believe you're working with an AI."

"You're the one working with two. The geth though is the worst."

"It wasn't exactly by choice. The Cerberus AI was here before I even joined and Shepard decided to reactivate Legion. So about that little one…"

Rasen turned to find C3 and Legion working together as though they had for years. "Affirmative. Compensating power regulator alterations. Altering propulsion."

Tali couldn't help but stare at C3 as she continued her adjustments. "So that's a droid."

"Specifically, they call it an astromech droid, supposedly used for maintenance and navigation. Rang did say that most droids they fought against were more humanoid. But that little droid has risked her life to help us."

"Her?"

"Oh, right. Apparently in their galaxy droids are programmed with genders for the sake of conversations. And C3 is apparently female."

Tali still wasn't exactly thrilled by the notion of giving C3 a gender. "Not something I would expect. So how did C3 risk 'her' life?"

Rasen turned back to C3 as it continued to work, "When Horizon was attacked by the Collectors, C3 volunteered her services to correct a malfunction in the turrets' targeting system. We gave her a modest barrier using the nearby crates but effectively she was out in the open on her own as the Collectors attacked. C3 didn't attempt to protect herself, she focus solely on getting the turrets online. Even when the towers were activated, she just waited for us to finish dealing with the enemy."

C3 finished beeping to which EDI chimed in, "These modifications could prove advantageous. The _Tervho_ is a turian vessel and the _Normandy_ incorporates turian designs. Running tests. Done. A maneuverability improvement of 3.4% is achievable. Applying modifications now."

"So, what about the geth?"

Tali stopped working, forcing herself to glance at the geth. "Legion is…different. It acts nothing like the geth who followed Saren and Sovereign. It's nothing like any of the geth from the stories. It's protective of its people as we are of ours. I think it respects us, or it might be latent programming from when they use to work for our ancestors. But if the latter was the case why didn't they remove the programing that has them see us 'Creators'."

Rasen turned to Legion who was preoccupied with ensuring all corrections were finalized. "Maybe you're right. And maybe we've been wrong about synthetics too."

* * *

**A/N: **The Mandalorians have joined Shepard ready for war and the Collectors are now in trouble. Next update will be the entire Collector base assault so expect a delay and a multichapter update.

**Mando'a Translation:**

Gar jorhaa'i beskar'ad!(gahr joh-har-EE BES-kar-AHD)- Your talking about a droid!

Moti diryci(moh-TEE DEER-ee-SHEE)- Stand down.


	64. And the battle begins

**A/N: **So the time has come, one of the funnest missions in all of Mass Effect 2, the suicide run.

* * *

Shepard was in his room reviewing the squad's status, the new Mandalorian crew and the _Normandy_'s upgrades. But just outside his door, Jack was pacing back and forth, her mind filled with doubt. Suddenly a voice called out to her, _He is waiting for you._

_Who the fuck are you? Get out of my head!_

_Please, I do not mean to intrude, but I can feel your hesitation. I will leave you soon. Do not let fear discourage you. Go to him. He will not harm you as others before have. He will protect you, as Murtock once did. I can feel it. His love for you is unbound. Do not let this flame die so easily. Find peace in these few moments you can before throwing yourself into this storm._

* * *

Beviin left the cockpit, seeing how four real pilots didn't need him crowding it further. As he left he couldn't help but overhear Joker talking with the others, "I still can't see how any of you can pilot with all of that armor on."

"I can't see how you can fly without it."

"Turian pilots fly with armor all of the time."

"Yeah, look at how bad they crash."

Beviin could see the four of them would get along just fine and continued down to engineering. Inside he found C3, Legion and Rasen working vigorously on a few last minute modifications. Bev noticed Tali was missing but he wanted Rasen's attention for the time being. The two left the room for a bit to have time for themselves. Rasen had downloaded a nerve stimulation program into her suit as the two shared a moment of peace together in the engineering subdeck.

* * *

With an hour left before the approach to the Omega 4 relay, Prudii excused himself from the main battery. He had entered the empty crew quarters, removing every surveillance bug he could find before he cleaned his armor for the battle. Polishing the armor piece by piece, he paused as he gazed into the visor of his helmet, reflecting on all of his missions for the Republic, his time here, and all of the friends he lost. With the rest of the armor neatly laid out on one of the beds, Prudii finished up the helmet. He placed the helmet down on the bed along with the rest of his armor and was about to start putting it all back on. The door to the room opened but he didn't look.

The footsteps hesitantly entered the room, slowly creeping closer to Prudii. A hand placed itself on Prudii's shoulder as the door closed, "So…I've taken some antibiotics, as well as some herbal supplements that should bolster my immune system." She moved around to see Prudii as she grabbed a hold of his hand, "I was going to bring music, but I didn't know what you'd like…and I'm babbling like an idiot."

"No you're not," Prudii guided her to the bed.

"I just don't want to…I want this to work. I've thought it over. I've minimized the risks. But I'm still nervous. And that always makes me talk too much. It's a defense mechanism, and it's stupid, and…" Prudii placed a hand against her helmet, but Tali lowered it, "People who…who just see the helmet can't see my expression, so I have to make it clear…what I'm…" Prudii had pulled her mask off so he could gaze upon her helmetless face, "…feeling…"

"You never have to explain them to me, _cyare_." He watched as a tear trickled down her check. Prudii grabbed the tear with his finger before moved his hand behind her hood and he started to caress the back of her head, moving through her wavy hair as his free hand started to move down her back. Tali also started to grab Prudii's body, feeling the scars hidden by his under suit. She never thought she would ever feel such emotions as she passionately started to kiss Prudii. He started to help her undo her suit as she also removed his suit.

Just outside of the room, Lissarkh could sense this exchange, and she did not say a word nor did she intervene. She simply watched over the door ensuring their time together was not disturbed, knowing all too well this may be the last time they have a chance to exchange such feelings of affection. Lissarkh was watching over as many of the Mandalorians and _Normandy_'s crew as she could, ensuring this time now was not spent without some form of enjoyment, to live without regret, something she has always tried to do when she was in command of her troops.

* * *

Shepard was fully geared up and took a few moments to speak with the Illusive Man before the _Normandy_ hit the Omega 4 relay. The relay was distinctly different from all of the other relays, instead of the blue glowing eezo core the Omega 4 relay was glowing bright red, the relay itself was a dingy brown instead of the silver hull the other relays have along with a few extra towers sticking out on the bottom.

"Approaching Omega 4 relay. Everybody stand by."

Swoop laughed, "That's like asking a sarlacc to be ready to feed."

Shepard stood behind Joker as he turned to the four pilots on hand, "Let's make it happen people."

"Reaper IFF activated. Signal acknowledged."

As EDI did so, the crew noticed a strange event occurring with Jacob reporting, "Commander. The drive core just light up like a Christmas tree!"

"Drive core electrical charge at critical levels."

Kix took charge, "Rerouting to nonessentials."

The _Normandy_ lined up with the relay as the engines moved closer to the ship before being sent off to the galactic core. The crew could feel a portion of the inertia of the travel unlike a normal mass relay. "Brace for deceleration," warned EDI giving the organics time to recognize any potential dangers.

They arrived in the middle of a debris field taking the pilots by surprise, "Oh shit!"

They pulled the ship into a very rapid climb as they tried to avoid the wreckages. "Come on, show me your turian maneuverability girl!"

The _Normandy_ scrapped against a fragment of a quarian vessel before pulling out of the mess and into the clear. "Too close." The _Normandy_ activated all blast shields, covering all outer view ports with armor plating. "These must be all the ships that tried to make it through the Omega 4 relay. Some look, ancient."

Kix read through the scans and was amazed, "Turian scout flotillas, an asari research vessel, an STG science frigate, a mess of quarian ships, batarian interceptors, even entire volus exploration fleets. The older ones I can't even ID."

"These wrecks look almost as bad as the Second Battle of Jabiim."

"I was thinking more like the Battle of Duro. Or should I say the slaughter Grievous brought about."

While the clones looked back at the horrors of their war to compare the graveyard to, EDI interrupted, "I have detected an energy signature near the edge of the accretion disk."

"Has to be the Collector base. Take us in for a closer look. Nice and easy."

With stealth systems engaged, the _Normandy_ moved in. Even with the stealth systems, it seems they tripped some unknown sensors, "Careful, Jeff. We have company," EDI alerted, detecting a number of fighters on intercept course.

"Taking evasive maneuvers." The _Normandy_ was being put through the loops but they just kept coming. "Now they're just pissing me off!"

"They're interceptors. That's what they do."

"EDI—take these bastards out!" They out maneuvered two and fired a pair of Javelin disruptor torpedoes, blasting the pair into scrap to join the junkyard around them.

Unfortunately the majority of the fighters were still able to keep pace with the _Normandy_ as one of them was able to make a direct hit to the hull. Aran looked up as he could feel the attack was right on top of him. Miranda was in the cockpit to oversee things, fully gear in armor like Shepard, "As long as the new plating holds." The _Normandy_ was attacked with another series of hits forcing the crew to brace during the impacts.

"They want another round? Come on, girl, let's give it to them."

Kix flexed his talons, "Alright, let's see if my old fighter tricks will throw these bastards into a wall or two." After a couple of extraordinary maneuvering, one of the fighters moved on them as it detached the 'wings' and burned a hole into the ship flying into it.

A hologram of the ship was displayed before Joker, "Alert. Hull breach on the engineering deck."

"It's in the cargo hold!"

"My baby!"

Shepard stopped Dagger from leaving, "I'll take a team and deal with the intruder. You get the rest of them off our tail."

Dagger was conflicted but he understood his place. He saluted, "Aye, aye, Commander."

* * *

Grunt and Zaeed grabbed their weapons as Shepard joined them. Aay'han also loaded up seeing little need for a commander without troops to lead. The four man team entered the garage as the large metal orb floated in the middle of the room. The large red 'eye' focused on Shepard as energy built up ready for an attack. Shepard fired off a few rounds at it before being forced into cover. Grunt activated incendiary ammo for his shotgun as Zaeed tossed inferno grenades at it. Aay'han used the turbines to move around the orb before opening fire at it.

The floating eyeball stopped firing as it fled from the hangar through one of the many holes in the hangar. There was a moment of unsettling peace as Aay'han slowly moved around the hangar trying to anticipate where it might come out. The machine appeared behind Aay'han, gazing its glare on him. Shepard and his squad opened fire on it, giving Aay'han the time to take cover behind one of the turbines. Before the attack occurred it retreated as Joker came over the comm., "We're sitting ducks out here. I have to try to lose them in the debris field!"

The Normandy scrapped against some debris causing Shepard to stumble and grab a hold of one of the turbines. Zaeed was flung against one as Grunt and Aay'han held on. Back in the cockpit EDI voiced her personal concerns, "Our kinetic barriers are not designed to survive impact with debris that size, Jeff."

"Then I guess it's a good thing we upgraded. We're going in." They flew directly into a collapsing 'tunnel' as fighters were dispatched by the debris one by one. The _Normandy_'s portside scraped against debris and the crew felt the impact, "Come on, find some room."

"Kinetic barriers at 40 percent."

"Reroute non-critical power! This is gonna hurt!"

The _Normandy_ scrapped against the remains of a quarian vessel as their path started to close up. The _Normandy_ pushed it way through, trying to escape the fighters behind them. Tali, Forta, Legion, C3, Rasen and Beviin were working to compensate for this power serge as Kasumi rushed to maintain the drive core's output.

Dagger checked the systems, "Computer. Damage report!"

"Kinetic barriers steady at 30 percent. No significant damage."

Joker eased up from the controls, "Take the helm, EDI. Keep it slow. See if we can avoid any more attention."

As the _Normandy_ continued to the base, another one of the fighters in its base form burned a new hole into the garage, "I have detected an enemy heading for the cargo hold."

"That thing again. This one's up to Shepard."

A new one appeared, undamaged and ready for a fight. It stared to build up energy as it targeted Shepard first. The team was able to concentrate their fire on the target as it tried to attack Shepard. Aay'han tried to draw the machine's attention with insults, "Hey you piece of junk! You're a rejected probe droid that's what you are, you sorry excuse of an eyeball!"

It didn't seem to care as it continued to maneuver itself into a better position to shot the Commander. After a few more rounds, it decided to retreat back outside leaving the team guessing as to where it'll appear. Back to back the team watched for it. "There's the bastard!" Zaeed spotted the ball entering the hole at the far end of the cargo hold and the team started to unload as quickly as possible.

Before it had a chance to even target one of them, cracks started to form on its structure as a power overload occurred. The team rushed to cover behind one of the turbines just as it exploded. Grunt let out a small chuckle, "Dead for sure this time."

Over the comm. Joker and Miranda called, "Better get back up here, Commander."

"We're about to clear the debris field."

Aay'han glanced back at the gunship, "Good news Dagger, your girl is untouched."

* * *

Shepard returned to the bridge just as the Normandy flew out of the debris field. "There it is—the Collector base."

Swoop gazed upon the ugly structure, "Looks like a bad cross between a Geo hive and a Techno Union transport. But a hell of a lot bigger."

"See if you can find a place to land without drawing attention."

The scanner detected something coming out of the base, "Too late. Looks like they're sending out an old friend to greet us."

"Now that looks more like the cross you were talking about, Swoop."

The _Normandy_ gracefully dodged the first series of attack from the cruiser. Shepard smirked as he grabbed Joker's chair, "Time to show our new teeth. Fire the main gun."

The _Normandy _extended the Thanix Cannon as Garrus and Prudii targeted it. Joker punched the console to fire the heavy cannon. The supercharged slugs made a direct hit on the cruiser, penetrating its hull. "How do you like that, you sons-of-bitches?"

"Get in close and finish them off."

With a smile, Swoop took control, "Now you're talking my language, Commander! Strap in everyone, things are about to get hairy!"

The pilots maneuvered the _Normandy_ up high as the damaged Collector cruiser tried to shot them down. Out of range of the Collector's main gun, Joker punched up the console, targeting the ship, "Give 'em hell girl!"

This shot made a clean hole through the vessel, hitting their drive core. "Look out!" As the Collector ship exploded to pieces it sent out shockwaves that hit the _Normandy_ and the Collector Base.

The ship lost control as the crew felt the shaking, "Mass effect field generators are offline! EDI—give me something!"

"Generators unresponsive. All hands brace for impact."

The crew strapped in as the Normandy made a crash landing onto the surface of the base. The port wing hit a spike causing the ship to lose its intended vector where the ship eventually skidded to a halt.

The crew recovered from the crash though a bit thrown around. "Joker? You okay?"

"Uugh…think I broke a rib. Or all of them."

"Scales, Dagger, you guys alright?"

Kix pushed his head off the console, "And this is why we wear armor…for days like this."

"As far as crashes go, this one wasn't that bad."

Rang found the intercom, "Hey, another perfect example of Rule 45. Nice job flyguys."

After ensuring no casualties, EDI started to scan the _Normandy_, "Multiple core systems overloaded during the crash. Restoring operation will take time."

Miranda had doubts about that, "We all knew this was likely a one way trip."

"Our primary objective is to destroy the station and stop the Collectors. At any cost."

Joker was as thrilled about the notion as one might expect, "Well then, we're off to a good start. What's next?"

Shepard was more concerned about their safety, "How long until the Collectors find this landing zone?"

EDI has already made a few scans of the Base itself, "I do not detect an internal security network. It is possible the Collectors did not expect anyone to reach the base."

Dagger laughed, "Arrogance. That's going to be their undoing."

"If we're lucky, their external sensors were hit like we were. They might not know we're alive."

* * *

The Mandalorians had gathered in the hangar as they checked their armor and weapons. Prudii was acting as liaison once again as he tightened his gauntlets in the conference room. With everyone else gathered, Shepard walked in and stood at the end of the table, "This isn't how we planned this mission, but this is where we're at. We can't worry about whether the Normandy can get us home. We came to stop the Collectors, and that means coming up with a plan to take out this station. EDI, bring up your scans."

A hologram of the base appeared on the table. C3 displayed the same image for the Mandalorians. "You should be able to overload their critical systems if you get to the main control center here."

Jacob's omni-tool activated as he pointed, "That means going through the heart of the station. Right past this massive energy signature."

"That's the central chamber. If our crew or any of the colonists are still alive, the Collectors are probably holding them in there."

C3 had shown Aran, Aay'han and Beviin the scans prior, giving them the time to conceive a plan for this assault, "We have enough Mandalorians to create a distraction team and have them set up here." The area was far from the central chamber and the _Normandy_'s crash site. "Along with the gunship, they'll cause as much destruction as possible making our hosts engage them. We'll let them think they're all that's left of us."

Zaeed smirked, "I guess there was a reason why I liked Mandalorians."

Beviin took over, "As for the rest of us, our best and fastest routes will be through these two passages here." The pathways were highlighted for the teams as Bev continued, "We should take both routes so we can keep the Collectors in disarray until we reunite in the central chamber."

Miranda didn't like the plan, "No good. Both routes are blocked. See these doors? The only way past is to get someone to open them from the other side."

Rang couldn't help himself as he laughed, "Look Cerby, we've broken into places supposedly impenetrable with defenses and defenders a lot scarier than what this place has. And I can tell you right now I see at least three viable bypasses, and I'm not the strategist of the group. Now I would like everyone to turn their attention to our dear and best friend, the ventilation shaft."

Jacob laughed at the situation, "Practically a suicide mission. I volunteer."

Miranda placed her hand on his shoulder, "I appreciate the thought Jacob, but you couldn't shut down the security system in time. We need to send a tech expert."

"It's your call, Commander. Who do we send into the shaft?"

Shepard turned to his left, "We need someone with tech skills to hack that security system. Tali, you're up."

Tali stood proud as she responded, "I won't let you down."

Aay'han wanted added assurance, "We're also sending one of our best slicers in with you ma'am, if you don't mind. You game, C3?" The little droid beeped confidently, prepared to aid in any way possible.

Prudii was confident with both of them nothing the Collectors had would stop them. Shepard agreed as he continued, "The rest of us will break into two teams and fight down each passage. That should draw the Collectors' attention away from what they're doing."

Miranda jumped the gun to volunteer, "I'll lead the second fire team, Shepard. We'll meet up with you on the other side of the doors."

"Not so fast, Cheerleader. Nobody wants to take orders from you," and it seemed Garrus agreed with Jack on this matter.

"This isn't a popularity contest! Lives are at stake here. Shepard—you need someone who can command loyalty through experience."

Shepard knew exactly who to call on, "Garrus—you're in charge of the second team."

The turian, decked out in his new armor, simply nodded with sniper rifle in hand. Miranda had some confidence having seen his C-Sec dossier and his work as Archangel, "Well, at least he knows what he's doing."

"I don't know what we're going to find in there, but I won't lie to you. It's not going to be easy. We've lost good people. We may lose more. We don't know how many the Collectors have stolen—thousands, hundreds of thousands. It's not important. What matters is this: Not one more. That's what we can do, here, today. It ends with us. They want to know what we're made of? I say we show them, on our terms. Let's bring our people home."

* * *

**A/N: **I really believe the Jack romance was actually one of the most heartfelt romances out of all available(next to Thane). But my heart belongs to another, the masked beauty who has been by our side since the first game(though in this story Prudii gets her). Now to defend myself, Jedi do not allow themselves to be attached to anything or one, that doesn't mean they can or would stop others from expressing their feelings.

**Mandalorian Translation:**

cyare(SHAH-ray)- beloved, loved, popular


	65. Crashing in

Araniik knew his people were strong, and the Collectors were just as deadly, but they had something the Collectors didn't, a bond that connected them and the intelligence to use it. Now Prudii had shut off his speakers as he listed to Aran's plans, "Nyona, I'm leaving you in charge of the team going with Garrus while I take a small team with the Commander."

"Right, who else would you leave in charge? The explosive expert?"

"Hey, that's explosive medical expert thank you."

"Aay'han, I'm trusting you to keep the others safe."

"I won't leave a single Mandalorian behind."

Lissarkh was pleased to see how much these commandos had grown in the absence of the Republic and its war. "My talents would best be served fighting with the distraction team."

"So who's in command then, General?"

Lissarkh placed her hand on Aay'han's pauldron, "You are, Commander. Lead us to victory."

"General, are you going to be alright?"

Lissarkh closed her eyes as she searched her feelings. "Yes, sergeant. I have been strengthening my mental defenses while waiting for this arm to grow back. I do sense indoctrination devices within the base, none of which however should be encountered by anyone given our intended routes. I don't believe they are powerful enough to affect us, though that might change the moment we start the attack. The presence that controls the Collectors is very strong here. I also sense a lot of death, stretching back millennia. This base wasn't originally constructed for the Collectors. They are merely the latest occupants of it."

Aran turned back to the others, "Anyone's name I don't call, you're with Aay'han and Lissarkh. Rang, Beviin, Prudii, Rasen, Forta, Pyth. Palva and the other medics are staying onboard." Aran stood before his men as he looked down at the hologram of the base, "Look at us. When we first met, we we're nothing more than strangers to each other. Former enemies now comrades in arms, brothers and sisters united by a common purpose. No matter what happens today, I am proud to have fought alongside each and every one of you. Like Shepard said, we didn't start this fight but we're going to make sure it ends here. I don't know if these Collectors can feel fear, I rightfully don't care. We are going to put dread into their hearts and show them why Mandalorians are feared, not in one, but in two galaxies! Show these monsters no quarter, no weakness! Mandalorians, lock and load!"

* * *

Using the Force, Lissarkh lifted the Normandy up so the gunship had space to leave the hangar. With them clear, she gently placed the nose back down onto the ground. Dagger and Swoop used the gunship's stealth technology to their full advantage killing the engines every so often to quietly pass Collector patrols. They spotted a perfect little gathering with fairly defensible positions and enough room for them to maneuver about, both the ground team and the gunship. "Alright boys and girls, time to party!"

A pair of missiles were launched, one flew into a tunnel collapsing that entry point as the other blasted the main area clearing the cluster of Collectors. "Just like roasting Geos!"

Rook and Jak started to pick off the stragglers as Dagger moved into position. Swoop took this time to return to the cabin to activate the medical droid. "IM-6 activated."

"Six, stay out of the line of fire and be ready for any injured."

"Affirmative."

Swoop returned to his job of manning the tail gun as the other did their last minute checks on their gear. The light turned green and the doors opened. Vren rushed out first, barrels spinning as the others joined him.

* * *

Shepard waited for the gunship to take the Mandalorians to their position as Aran and his team joined him along with Legion and Kasumi. "This is Dagger, distraction underway. See you when you're ready for the finale."

"Copy that. We're moving out." Shepard jumped out of the airlock first, followed by Aran and Kasumi. Prudii and Rasen were next followed by Forta and Legion. Now team two disembarked as Tali and C3 traveled to the ventilation entry point.

Tali turned to Prudii as she nodded to the team, and he returned a nod to her. Inside the entrance closed behind them leaving the two engineers no choice but to push forward. Tali reported in, "I'm inside the ventilation shaft, Shepard. It's hot in here, but it's clear as far as I can tell." C3 started to use her fire extinguisher systems in an effort to help Tali cool down, even if she did exhaust everything it wouldn't do much, but the thought counted.

"Second team—are you in position?"

"In position. Meet you on the other side of those doors."

"This is Nyona. We're ready to push through."

Prudii activated his tactical cloak and moved up to check the area. There were two Collectors holding on a platform. Prudii pulled his DC-17 sniper on one. Just as he was about to fire on the first target, they both flew off away from them. "You guys see that?"

Garrus also saw this on their side, "Yeah, looks like that distraction of yours is working after all. Our path just cleared up. We're moving on now."

With Prudii's signal, the team quietly moved around the platforms. Suddenly Tali come on the radio, "I'm stuck. Something's blocking the pipe. Looks like some kind of gate."

Legion's systems had already found Tali and C3 and what was obscuring them. "There is a valve by the ventilation shaft. That will likely clear the obstruction."

Shepard activated the valve as Tali reported, "The gate is open. Moving forward!"

It seemed that their actions weren't completely unnoticed by the Collectors as a swarm of them appeared at the next valve. "Incoming!"

"Nyona again. Looks like whatever you guys did alerted the Collectors. We're getting attacked now."

Prudii sniped two out of the air hitting each square in the faces before either had a chance to land. Legion followed up with a shot from his sniper rifle taking another one down. One of the Collectors used the lay of the land to its advantage, using a pillar as cover to land on their level. The Collector was then controlled by Harbinger as it became empowered. "Assuming direct control."

Rasen deployed her combat drone behind the controlled Collector as the team worked to finish it off. While the others did that, Prudii activated the valve for Tali and C3 to proceed down the shaft. Legion sniped another Collector while Aran gunned another one in midflight. Forta moved ahead activating another valve. Kasumi snuck up behind a Collector that was about to grabbed the batarian from behind. She delivered a killing blow to the back collapsing the bug next to Forta. "Thanks."

"No sweat."

"We're in position. Just waiting for the doors to open." Now the Collectors were showing up in force, as a group was already in position to block them. Prudii killed another pair of Collectors with his sniper rifle as Legion tried to keep up. Forta tossed a tech mine at the others overloading their weapons. Shepard knocked one off the platforms with a concussion shot as Aran finished the other off with a burst of rounds.

Prudii spotted another valve in Tali's way and rushed to activate it. As he did three more Collectors, including one controlled by Harbinger, appeared to his right. Kasumi was able to knock one down using a flashbang. Forta was able to damage the wings on the normal Collector enough that it could no longer support itself in flight and plummeted to its doom. Legion broke through the barrier of the possessed Collector giving the others a chance to kill it. "Progress cannot be halted."

The squad activated another gate as Tali checked in again, "I knew I could count on you guys. I'll let you know if I need any more help."

Aran stopped Shepard as he crept to the corner. He signaled Prudii to scout ahead, activating his tactical cloak. Prudii returned showing he spotted three regular Collectors gather in a tight group. Aran pulled out a thermal detonator from his pack and rolled it out, bouncing it off a wall to the feet of the Collectors. The three Collectors were not sure what the little sphere was as their raised their rifles to the wall it came from. Just as they were about to move closer to check it out, the detonator exploded, vaporizing the three where they stood.

Aran rushed out as he moved to the step. He quickly took cover as his shield was assaulted by a particle beam. Prudii fired two rounds into the Collector quickly falling the lone sentry.

Rasen moved up to activate the next valve as more Collectors started to fly in from several different areas, "Reinforcements coming our way!"

Shepard and Kasumi both knocked Collectors out of the sky with a concussive shot and flashbang, respectfully. Legion activated its combat drone behind the Collectors' position distracting them long enough for the team to move to activate the last valve. Prudii took another head with a sniper round as Shepard rushed to the door. The others covered him as he tried to open it. To no avail he tried to contact the others. "Come in."

On the other path, the team was being swarmed by Collectors. Grunt crushed one into the wall using his momentum and mass to crush it. Tali hacked the door open as C3 was the first to rush through screaming. Rang used his LJ-50 to kill another Collector in the air as Beviin finished his victim using his vibroblade. Garrus continued to fire his Mantis sniper rifle at Collectors as he guided the others into the next room. "Look out. Seeker swarms!" Nyona used her biotics as she blasted another group of Collectors off the ledge.

"We're in position. We need this door open now!"

With the other through, Tali started to work on closing the door behind them. C3 however was already working on opening Shepard's door. Unfortunately C3 seemed to have encountered an unexpected complication. "What do you mean a problem? Fix it, C3!" C3 worked quickly and worked her way around it, opening the door.

"Here they come!" Prudii continued to provide cover fire, sniping more Collectors as they flew in. "Fall back!" The other continued to spray their shots across the area keeping the Collectors at bay.

With their door shut, Garrus, Zaeed and Grunt moved to help Shepard, "Suppressing fire! Don't let anyone through that door!"

C3 worked as quickly as she could to shut the doors while the other gave her the time she needed. They were killed three Collectors that daringly moved up to try and take them just before C3 managed to hack the system and seal the door. Aran pat the little droid's head, "Nice work, C3. You showed them what an astromech can do."

As the others took this moment to catch their breath, Miranda called them out, "Shepard! You need to see this!" The group cautiously moved up as they surveyed the new area. The walls were lined with pods along with several tubes traveling to another section of the base. Miranda led them to an occupied pod, "Looks like one of the missing colonists."

"There's more. Over here."

As the others examined these occupied pods, Shepard continued to examine the first one. Suddenly steam started to vent from the pod as the woman inside started to awaken. "My god! She's still alive!" As Shepard tried to open her pod, wingless seekers hidden within the pod started to emerge as they slowly started to 'consume' her, turning her into goo. Shepard was too late for her as what was left quickly became a puddle. He shouted to the others after seeing this, "Get them out of there! Hurry!"

Jack grabbed her shotgun as she started to ram the side of one of the pods. Grunt pulled one out of the wall as he started to rip the lid off with his hands. Bev tossed one of his force pikes to Prudii as the two quickly jabbed the staffs into the side of the pods forcing them open. C3 and Forta were successful in hacking a few pods open. Nyona found a way to use her biotics to force the pods open without harming the individual inside. The team worked fast, trying to save everyone they could who was still alive. Shepard opened two pods himself before helping an elderly woman out of one, "Doctor Chakwas? Are you alright?"

"Shepard? You…you came for us." The others were still recovering from the effects from being within those pods.

Shepard lent out his hand as he helped the doctor up, "No one gets left behind."

The yeomen, Kelly, hobbled over to the Commander with some assistance from Thane, "Thank god you got here in time. A few more seconds and…I don't even want to think about it."

"The colonists were…processed." Chakwas forced herself to remember everything she saw before passing out inside the pod, "Those swarms of little robots, they—melted their bodies into gray liquid and pumped it through these tubes."

"Why are they doing this? What are they doing with our genetic material?"

"I don't know. I'm just glad you got here before it happened to us."

Miranda nodded, "So are we. But we still have a job to do. We've done well so far. Let's hope we can finish the job."

Aran moved away from the others to assess his men, "Distraction team SITREP."

"Kix here. Vren's having a blast with that new toy your friends gave him. Your Jedi was right, she was a good choice for this. She's saved all of our asses at least once. Jorgal and Drok especially cause of those exploding husks. The triplets have been helpful with those biotic bubbles to protect us. And your friend, the advisor, he's rather decent at commanding us and stuff. Though he talks like he's still military."

"I wouldn't expect anything less from an ARC Trooper. Just give him more time to adjust out of it, we've had nearly two years to work on that. Casualties?"

Kix fired off a few more rounds before answering, "There's a few; Niki, Taridus, Zelon, Rojas, and Yahiya."

"Dead?"

"Nah, we got them onto the gunship to send back to the _Normandy_. They weren't that bad, just more of a liability then an asset while fighting that's all. Also, I think the Collectors know we're nothing but a distraction. We haven't seen too many Collectors; they've only been sending those husk things at us."

"Yeah might have been something on our end." Aran switched comm. channels, "Dagger, extract the team, they've done their job. Then meet us at these coordinates."

"We were already on our way back. So time for the big push, huh? Alright, see you when you get there."

With confirmation of reinforcements, Shepard called out to the _Normandy_, "Joker? Can you get a fix on our location?"

"Roger that, Commander. All those tubes lead into the main control room right above you. The route is blocked by a security door, but there's another chamber that runs parallel to the one you're in."

EDI gave Shepard more prospective of the situation, "I cannot recommend that. Thermal emissions suggest the chamber is overrun with seeker swarms. Mordin's countermeasure cannot protect you against so many at once."

Shepard turned to Mordin, "What about biotics? Could we create a biotic field to keep them from getting near us?"

Mordin contemplated for a few moments, "Yes…in theory. Seekers very susceptible to biotics. Biotic-user might be capable of creating biotic field, repelling swarm. Probably only can escort small team through. Recommend staying within close proximity however. Seeker swarms have nasty bite…painful."

"Yeah, I'll say," Rang added as he rubbed his forearm.

Miranda volunteered her services, "I could do it. In theory any biotic could handle it. Shepard, who do you want to maintain the field?"

"Jack and I will take a small team through the seeker swarms. The rest of you provide a diversion by going through the main passage. We'll open the security doors from the other side and meet you there."

"Who should lead the diversion team?"

"I'll keep the defenders busy while you slip in the back," Jacob volunteered his services once more and this time Shepard allowed it.

Chakwas had other concerns however, "What about me and the rest of the crew, Shepard? We're in no shape to fight," as evident by the crewmembers incapability of standing on their own.

Joker made a suggestion, "Commander? We have enough systems back online to do a pickup, but we'd need to land back from your position."

"We can't afford to go back, Shepard. Not now," Miranda protested after gaining so much ground.

"You'll never make it without help. I'll send someone with you." Shepard signaled to one of the others.

Mordin activated his omni-tool and answered, "Joker, need location of landing zone. Will meet you there."

"Agreed Commander." Aran turned to his men, "C3, Pyth. You're returning to the _Normandy_ with them."

"Oh this is a day of days, meeting with Dr. T'Soni and discussing the Protheans, now fighting alongside Dr. Solus. Could this day get any better?" C3 started to beep at Pyth as she gently rammed into her leg, "Oh, yes of course. How could I forget you? I am certain you will be very helpful little one."

"Professor," Beviin handed her one of his Geonosian force pikes, "I'm sure it'll come in handy. Take good care of it and the others."

Pyth graciously accepted the weapon, "Yes. I will use it to its fullest potential and ensure their safety, as well as make sure your weapon still works afterward. Personally I was more proficient with a saber than a staff or pike, though I can make do. Come along C3."

"We've all got our assignments. Let's move out!"

* * *

As the two professors lead the others, Pyth couldn't help but start a conversation with the doctor about his work. "Your paper on 'indoctrination and the effects of the mind' was very intriguing. I actually found uses for the notes. As well as your rendition of the human play Gilbert and Sullivan."

"Heard about that have you?"

"Yes. I like to have perspective on the people behind the papers I read. Of the many works you have performed in, my absolute favorite of all time is 'Scientist Salarian'. _ I am the very model of a scientist salarian, I've studied species turian, asari and batarian. I'm quite good at genetics(as a subset of biology) because I am an expert(which I know is a tautologyyyy). My xenoscience studies range from urban to agrarian, I am the very model of a scientist salariaaaan._" Pyth joyfully sang, having been given a rare opportunity to work with such great intellectuals within a short period of time.

"Could perform entire song with you when lives aren't at risk. Pitch perfect for backup singer."

"Exquisite. Then we shouldn't dally." C3 started to franticly buzz at Pyth. She couldn't understand the droid but she understood its meaning. She extended the force pike and swung the end around the corner, jabbing a Collector through the eye. She pulled the Collector to the ground and pulled the pike out as she pinning it under her foot before stabbing its heart. "Excellent timing, C3. Dr. Solus, I recommend someone guard the back of the group. C3 stay in the middle and try to signal when and where the next group of Collectors are going to come from." The little droid rolled herself into position, extending her radar dish from her dome head actively looking for Collectors now.

* * *

**A/N: **Originally I had music notes around Pyth singing. If anyone knows how to keep the notes on for a story doc I'd much appreciate it.


	66. Hold the line!

Vren continued to push the husks back with the Z-6 rotary cannon as the others focused on other areas the enemies have been crawling out of. A lone husk pulled itself out from a small crevice no one had covered. It appeared rather close to Vren, who was rather preoccupied with his slaughter fest. Just as the husk's hand was ready to strike Vren, a shot took it out.

"Lizard!" Aay'han moved over to Kix, grabbing his armor's collar, "I told you to keep your eyes on the skies for Collectors and those wannabe Vulture droids!"

"Look they aren't coming anymore. They know were a distraction so I might as well use my rifle to kill things. Besides, everyone else was too busy to watch Vren's hump."

"I had his back and I had the husk in my sight." Aay'han turned his attention back to the others, "Left flank, don't push too hard. This is a battle of attrition, not an all-out frontal. You two, get your humps back here! You're straying too far from the group again!"

Kix turned his eyes back up like Aay'han told him. He spotted unusual movement off in the distance. Kix pulled his rifle up to check it, "We've got a new group of seekers inbound!"

"Everyone pull it in! Girls we need that barrier again."

"You've got it." Three asari sisters, often called the triplets by the other Mandalorians, ran back to the center to create a large biotic sphere around everyone. Vren slowly moved back to the field as he continued to fire on more husks. "Vren, get your ass back here!"

The seeker swarm moved closer and Vren was still outside the barrier. Just as the swarm was on top of him Vren walked into the barrier as the Z-6 burned through the seekers that tried to grab him. With the team confined within the biotic bubble again the Collectors started to attack, firing rockets from catacombs above, they even sent another praetorian to assault them. Lissarkh threw her lightsaber at the praetorian while pulling ACP repeater out to continue to fight. The praetorian attempted to avoid the lightsaber but with the Force guided its path to the praetorian, there was no escape for it as the blade started to slice into the metal behemoth.

With the Collectors high above pinning them down, it seemed to be the end until the comm. came alive. "Did someone order an airlift?" The gunship came from below, their weapons tearing into the enemy ranks before two missiles were launched into the cliffside where the Collectors were firing rockets.

Clearing the ranged threats Dagger moved in to land inside the barrier. Vren and Lissarkh continued to cut down husks as the others moved closer to where the gunship had dropped them off. "Go on, I've got this." Bethila, the oldest and strongest of the three sisters ordered. They were uncertain if they should, but they believed in her abilities rushing to the others.

The gunship touched down, Jak and Rook continued to kill targets as the others loaded on, "Ha! That's another five for me! What about you Rook?"

"You're too slow, kid. I've racked another eight."

"You're lying!"

"Not when I used one of the exploding one to take out five others with it."

With most of the team loaded onboard, all who were left were Vren, Lissarkh, Aay'han and Bethila. Aay'han pounded his fist against the gunship, signaling Dagger to shut the opposite door. Lissarkh and Vren retreated back to the gunship as Rook provided covering fire against a Scion. Aay'han had returned for Bethila, "Come on, we've got to go!"

"I don't…I don't think I can hold it much longer…" Bethila was starting to feel the strain of keeping up such a large barrier on her own, falling to one knee even as she diminished the barrier somewhat after telling her siblings to leave. "Go! Get my sisters out of here!"

Aay'han moved himself under her right arm, wrapping his left arm around her neck, "You're a Mandalorian. We don't say quit until we're dead. Besides, I promised Aran I'd make sure everyone is there for the after party. Let go, one step at a time and make the barrier smaller as we go." Aay'han and Bethila moved closer to the gunship as the Commander fired his rifle at a few husks that tried to get close.

Lissarkh could sense Bethila struggling. The Jedi jumped back out of the gunship, using the Force and the ACP repeater to keep the husks at bay. Vren turned back as he heard her firing, "I don't know about the rest of you but I don't plan on just standing around while the Jedi saves the day."

Vren jumped out of the gunship as well freely firing on every husk he could. Kix groaned, grabbing the Viper sniper rifle shouting, "Mandalorians, tear these bastards a new one!"

The others also moved to aid Bethila, attempting to kill the seeker swarm themselves. As they got closer, Bethila started to stumble. Falie and Estellise created a mini-barrier around the others and the cabin section of the gunship, "Bethila, hurry!"

With this new barrier created around them, Aay'han pulled Bethila along as he ran into the gunship. "General!"

"Right…" Lissarkh deactivated her lightsaber as she pulled her arms inward. Vren returned inside the gunship as he and the others continued their assault. "Drop it now!" Falie and Estellise dropped the biotic barrier just as Lissarkh unleashed a powerful Force attack, knocking back the seekers, the husks and the Mandalorians indiscriminately. Lissarkh quickly recovered from the attack as she rushed into the ship, "Close the blast shields." The last door slammed shut as Dagger and Swoop flew off to the rendezvous.

Aay'han helped Bethila to her sisters, congratulating the team, "Nice work everyone. We've shown these _shabu'e_ we can hold our own, now for the real test of your fighting spirit."

Kix moved to Aay'han, "Think the others are faring as well as us?"

"If I know Aran, he's giving them one hell of a storm."

* * *

"This is so unfair!"

Aran continued to fire on the approaching husks with his Trando SMGs, tapping Samara as he moved back into cover to reload. "Not being able to use your explosives not fun?"

"Collectors are one thing, this is becoming annoying! If I use any of my favorite weapons there's a good chance these little buggers will cause them to explode, catching us in the blast with it. Ah, the disadvantages of having explosives that detonates on impact."

"Then don't! Just clear the path for us without blowing it up!"

"What's the matter, Ny? Can't take the pressure of keeping us alive?"

"I'm thinking about dropping it for a moment, just for you…"

"Aw that's sweet Ny, but I'd really don't wanna dying by billions of them ripping me to shreds."

"Would you two just fuck and be done with it! God, listening to you two bicker like an old married couple, it fucking annoying!"

Rang pulled out his LJ-50, using the bayonet to stun a couple of husks before ramming his vibroblade into their faces, "Hey, at least I don't tell you how to run your sex life, psycho."

Aran smacked Rang's head, "Enough. Get your head back into the fight."

"It is. I'm just having a friendly chat with our barrier support. Nothing too distracting. At least not for me. That's what really counts."

"Our attention is best focused on the enemy." Samara grabbed a husk in a biotic field before throwing it against another as they crashed back down the hole they crawled out of. Thane threw an abomination back before firing a burst of rounds from the Tempest submachine gun to finish the job.

"Agreed ma'am. Rang, LJ me." Rang handed over the LJ-50 to his brother, grabbing his DC-17m again. Aran stuck the tip of the LJ-50 just outside of the bubble as he aimed at the Scion coming around the corner. The seekers ignored the LJ-50's barrel which gave him a clear shot at the Scion itself. The concussive shot from the gun knocked the creature back a step before the explosion kicked it back even further.

Rang grabbed the anti-armor pieces for the DC-17m and did the same thing Aran did with the LJ-50. Aran fell back as he grabbed his ACP and placed the LJ on Rang's back. The anti-armor round utterly destroyed the Scion, leaving only the husks to deal with.

The team overcame the seeker 'shield' using their rapid-fire weapons, taking out husk after husk. With the coast cleared Jack and Nyona pushed forward, "Time to move people."

Shepard took lead as Aran watched their back. Jack and Nyona were starting to feel the strain of hold the barrier for so long. "Aran…it's getting…a bit hard to stand…"

"Just hold on a bit long."

Shepard killed a few husks that had waited for them to pass by. "We're almost through. The exit is just ahead."

Jack and Nyona ran into a sprint down the hill forcing the others to keep in stride. Thane and Samara knocked a pair of husks that had crawled on the walkway they were now running down on. "Collectors on our six!"

The team turned around to defend Jack and Nyona from this surprise assault. Jack climbed over the barrier first. Just as Thane jumped onto the barrier Samara blasted a Collector back waiting for Nyona to move on. Rang planted a small det charge onto the other side of the barrier as the team moved down. "We must hurry, Shepard."

"All right. Let's move." The team continually rotated with one another, attack while keeping up with Jack and Nyona. Only Aran and Rang continuously fired on the Collectors while moving backwards.

Rang pulled out a trigger and detonated the charge just as a Collector was hopping over. "That'll teach ya to look before you hop a barrier!"

"They're pushing keep it up." Shepard fired on a charging Collector that flew in closer than the others.

"Hurry, Shepard." Thane opened the door before turning back to fire on the Collectors again.

Nyona waited for Aran and Rang to move to her side before turning to Jack. "Want to show these chumps up?"

"You bet." Jack and Nyona both turned around as the barrier bubble collapsed. The two biotic powerhouses had collected the energy they were using to protect the team, enveloped around themselves before unleashing it on the Collectors and seekers.

"If I ever think about ticking her off beyond normal, remind me she can do that…" Shepard and Aran spotted a few more Collectors off in the distance as they tried to move in. They both fried at the Collectors as they moved back for the doors to close.

Suddenly the radio came alive as the interference from the seekers disappeared. "…Sigma leader? Araniik, do you copy?"

"Loud and clear, Beviin. What's you status?"

"All members accounted for. We're pinned between the door and the enemy. We need extraction. Expect heavy fire coming your way."

The team rushed to cover next to the door as Rang worked the console. "Copy that. Just hold on a bit long, doors are almost open. Rang!"

"I'm working on it. I don't have L33T HaX0R skillz like Scorch or Bev. Got! Doors opening!"

The doors parted as a mess of bullets came flying as the others continued to fight while falling back. Jacob and Beviin held their ground waiting for the others to clear out before falling back themselves. The moment everyone was through Shepard yelled, "Seal the door!"

Rang worked as fast as he could to shut them again but a stray shot managed to find its way through and hit Jacob in the abdominal region. With the door sealed Shepard check on his injured crewmember, who quickly recovered, "I'm okay. Just need a second to catch my breath."

"Second my ass. Let me have a look." Rang pulled out a pair of medical tweezers as he examined Jacob's injury. "Ha! Found the nasty piece." Rang quickly and forcefully pulled the slug out, "You're lucky, a few centimeters more to the left and you'd be a dead man." He dangled the bloody slug in front of Jacob, "Want to keep it as a souvenir? The shot that could've killed you. Not too many people I know can say that." Jacob passed, letting him keep it, if he wanted.

Prudii reloaded his rifle as he moved to Legion. "Now's a good time to call it a match. So we can fight with everything we've got."

"Affirmative. Total sniper rifle kill count thus far: 43."

"Damn," Garrus had found his way to the duo, "just five more and I might have beaten you. Guess that's why neither of you decided to lead either time."

"You didn't this time, Garrus."

"Yeah, well I couldn't let the two of you have all of the fun without me. So quit stalling and tell us your count, Prudii."

"57."

"The only reason you got so many was because you don't have to reload after every shot."

"Never said you couldn't use the Viper, Archangel."

While the three sharpshooters conversed, Shepard checked up on the others, "Joker? Are you at the rendezvous point?"

"I'm here, Commander. Chakwas and the rest of the crew just showed up."

"Mordin's group just arrived, Shepard. No casualties."

Miranda had a slight smile of relief on her face, "Excellent. Now let's make it count. EDI, what's our next step?"

"There should be some nearby platforms that will take you to the main control console. From there you can overload the system and destroy the base."

"Commander? You got a problem. Hostiles massing just outside the door. Won't be long until they bust through."

Shepard found the platform EDI spoke of and climbed on, "A rearguard could defend this position and keep the Collectors from overwhelming us."

"Pick a team to go with you, Shepard. Everyone else can bunker down here and cover your back."

Before the team was chosen a humming sound started to resonate in the air, slowly getting louder. The commandos knew the sound all too well, the gunship was near, "Looks like we're just in time for the party!" Dagger pulled up with the doors fully open. The Mandalorians started to hop out as Aay'han and Jorgal carried out crates. Vren even brought along two drones he has been working on using the same networking the geth us to increase intelligence, though limited to just between the pair.

Rang was busy placing proximity mines in front of the doors, hidden underneath the few rocks he could find while also placing det-charges next to the doors. "They're all in for a nasty surprise when they walk through these doors!"

Aay'han placed down his crate as he checked the view. "This is a perfect kill zone for this door." He opened the crates as he started to place the base of the EWHB-12. Lissarkh saw what Aay'han was doing. She drew her lightsaber and cut out a section of wall. Using the Force she moved it next to the EWHB-12's location, placing it to cover the gunner from the other door. After Jorgal set up the blaster and seat Aay'han checked the alignment of the barrel ensuring every shot was going to go through that door.

"Then that just leave this door for me…" Vren was using the Z-6 like a mounted turret as he checked his sights on the door.

Aran jumped onto the platform Shepard was on. Soon the other members of Sigma Squad joined him. "This all started for us when Sigma Squad found that mini mass relay and arrived on the Citadel two years ago. I think it's only right that we help finish this."

Shepard nodded, welcoming the extra firepower. Shepard pointed out his two crewmembers to join him, Miranda jumped on first followed by Tali. "I'm ready, Commander."

"So am I."

"Anything to say before we do this."

The Mandalorians had gathered around Shepard's team to listen as well. "The Collectors, the Reapers—they aren't a threat to us. They're a threat to everything—everyone. Those are the lives we're fighting for. That's the scale. It's been a long journey, and no one's coming out without scars." Grunt pounded his fists as Nyona flared her biotics, "But it all comes down to this moment. We win or lose it all in the next few minutes. Make me proud. Make yourselves proud."

Aran hid his smile behind his helmet, "Well said, Commander. Let's go finish this."

The platform started to move as it ripped itself away from the ground it once was attached to. Sigma Squad could see Aay'han ordering Mandalorians into positions that played to their strengths and guarded their weaknesses. The others of Shepard's crew also started to prepare for the long haul of a fight that was to come.

* * *

Aay'han was running through last minute checks now with everyone, "Clips and ammo mods?"

Tare was finishing his augmentation of his assault rifle and Rasen's shotgun for incendiary rounds, "Loaded and ready!"

"Gunners?"

Vren rotated the Z-6 while checking his position and his drones, "I'm good."

Forta turned the EWHB while checking the connection to the ammo box. "Green light on this end."

"Biotics?"

Nyona flared with a powerful display as the triplets and the few other bioticly gifted Mandalorians did the same. "We're just waiting for the slaughter fest."

"Gunship?"

Dagger had moved the gunship out of view for the time, leaving them as the ace. "All systems are go. Just waiting for your orders to over whelm 'em."

"Lizard?"

Kix checked his sniper rifle, making a few adjustments to the scope. "As ready as one can be for this crazy mission."

Lissarkh was also finishing her examination of Aran's loaned ACP repeater, ensuring the sight and loader were properly aligned. She could sense the anxiety in Aay'han; though this nothing new for him. It's the same type of anxiety he feels before every battle since becoming a commander, worrying about his brothers, and now sisters as well, and the possibility that some won't be leaving this place alive.

With the others in position, Aay'han had a moment to speak with Lissarkh. "General, do you think we can do anything more to prepare?"

Lissarkh surveyed the area, walking around as she looked at everyone from different angles. "There is nothing more we can do. Everyone is committed and our defenses are strong. Now we need to hold out long enough for Shepard and Sigma Squad to set the charges." They could hear one of the doors starting to open now, "And I believe we won't have to wait for much longer." Lissarkh grabbed the ACP as the two moved to cover, waiting for the Collectors to trip the mines that were laid out before them. "May the Force be with us all…" The doors opened as the Collectors stormed the area only to trigger the proximity mines. As the smoke cleared even more Collectors and husks started to attack again. Aay'han waited for a moment before detonating the charges next to the door. The blast killed a few husks and a Collector. Forta started to fire before the smoke clear, initiating the Mandalorian assault.

* * *

**Mando'a Translation:**

shabuir(SHAH-boo-EER)- extreme insult - "jerk", but much stronger


	67. To the core of the problem

The platform Shepard and Sigma Squad were on suddenly stopped about halfway to the main control center. The Collectors had overridden EDI's controls as a new platform appeared off in the distance. Prudii grabbed the Widow as he spotted the targets. "Hostile," he pulled the trigger, confirming his kill, "Scratch one. Two for you."

The others of Sigma Squad didn't even wait for the platform to stop moving before opening fire on the Collectors. Beviin fired three bursts along with Aran and Rang trying to kill the other two. Beviin and Aran's shots hit their marks, killing one of the bugs while injuring the others. Rang's shots were off and hit the platform. "Frag this!" Rang grabbed a frag grenade and tossed it to the Collector. Unlike his shots, the grenade rolled to the Collector moments before detonating.

As the last Collector was blown to pieces a new platform started to spin its way toward the team. Miranda grabbed one of the Collectors with her biotics. As the platform continued without it, the biotics slammed the Collector down to the abyss below, dead before it even hit the ground. Shepard was able to knock one off the platform with a concussive shot as he started to fire on the last Collector. Tali threw out her combat drone behind the Collector forcing it back out and into the volley of bullets aimed at it.

A new platform started to fly toward them as one of the Collectors became 'empowered', "I will direct this personally." Prudii snipped one of the non-controlled Collectors with the Widow as Miranda and Beviin focused on the other. Chiktikka moved on the Harbinger controlled Collector as it zapped it from behind. The little combat drone was quickly defeated as Harbinger unleashed a devastating attack against it. "This delay is pointless."

"Would you just shut up already?" Rang popped an anti-armor round at it but the biotic barrier took most of the damage. Tali charged up the plasma shotgun. The three shots fired from the shotgun traveling almost in a straight line to the target. All three hit the Collector but it was still standing. Aran and Shepard put in a few extra rounds to finish the job.

Now it seemed the Collectors were serious as two platforms moved in at the same time. Before the platforms made contact with the expanding collection, Harbinger took control over another Collector before the battle even started. "You cannot resist. We fight as one."

"Yeah, well we fight as a pod, so that's even better bug-ugly!" Rang was right, Sigma Squad moved in precision with one another, Prudii fired another round from the Widow, killing his target. As he reloaded Beviin and Aran were working together to kill another Collector as Rang fired his LJ-50 concussion rifle forcing a Collector back. Shepard finished the injured Collector Rang shot at as Miranda used her biotics to crush another. Tali summoned Chiktikka again as she charged her shotgun. With the Collector's back to her, Tali fired the shotgun, killing it from a distance. Prudii fired the Widow at the Harbinger Collector, breaking the barrier and damaging it. The Collector had created an extra biotic barrier, slowing the velocity of the shot to a point that it didn't completely destroy the body. It didn't matter as the other converged on it and finished the injured vessel.

A lone platform approached them, this time it carried husks. Prudii swapped sniper rifles, the Widow for his DC, as he checked. "Three sparkers and two cannons. Taking the sparkers out now." Prudii didn't waste a shot as each one hit all five targets. The three abominations were the first to fall but the shots against the two Scions only seemed to serve to get them angry, if that was even possible. "Rang…"

"Now for the pièce de résistance as Earthlings say…" Rang fired off a single anti-armor round landing it between the two Scions. The blast ruptured the Scions' sacks causing a flood of fluid to rush out of their bodies. "I actually wasn't expecting that to work in that way but I'll take it…"

Their original platform was locked in and wasn't going anywhere. The team moved up to the last platform the Scions were on. After clearing the platform of the bodies Shepard activated the platform, "This is it. All the tubes lead to this spot. EDI. What can you tell us? What are they doing?"

Sigma Squad remained vigilant as they watched their backs while EDI reported, "The tubes are feeding into some kind of super-structure. It is emitting both organic and non-organic energy signatures. Given these readings. It must be massive. Shepard. If my calculations are correct, the super-structure…is a Reaper."

"Not just any Reaper…a human Reaper." Shepard could already see it as Sigma Squad turned to see. A machine in the form of a human skeleton from above the hip that was hung by its arms as four tubes connected to its shoulders.

"Precisely."

"Holy fierfek."

Beviin walked up next to Rang, "You can say that again."

"Say one for me."

The platform docked with the main control center platform. After the team moved closer, examining the 'infant' Reaper, "It appears the Collectors have processed tens of thousands of humans. Significantly more will be required to complete the Reaper."

"They're building it to look like a human. Why?"

"It appears that a Reaper's shape is based upon the species used to create it."

Rang looked to Shepard, "Human? Really? That thing has a third eye in one socket and mandibles–things on both sides of its jaw. Yeah, I think someone screwed up on the whole 'human' part."

"Reapers are machines—why do they need humans at all?"

"Incorrect. Reapers are sapient constructs. A hybrid of organic and inorganic material. The exact construction methods are unclear, but it seems probable that the Reapers absorb the essence of a species; utilizing it in their reproduction process."

Aran had kept up with the human colony attacks, remembering the attacks started mere months after Shepard was 'killed', though the attacks were varied and separated by weeks or months at a time. "Computer, how many more humans do you think they'd try to take to finish this thing?"

"Millions. Perhaps more. Impossible to know for certain. The Reaper appears to be in a very early stage of development. An embryo in human terms."

Rang shouted, "Embryo? That thing looks more like a fetus to me!"

Prudii didn't like the situation. "What do the Collectors gain by turning humans into a Reaper?"

EDI could only theorize, "They may be facilitating the Reaper equivalent of reproduction. Or it may serve another purpose. I do not have the data to speculate further. However it is clear that the Collectors are merely pawns. The technology and ability needed to create this Reaper is not their own. It is likely that different species construct each Reaper. In this case, the Collectors provide the labor."

"That makes sense," Bev continued, adding his own thoughts, "Since the Collectors are repurposed Protheans, it's possible the Reapers are using them to create this cycle's new Reaper. The Collectors have gathered unique specimens from every space-faring race alive today; it could be possible that the Collectors, under Reaper guidance, were 'sampling' for potential Reapers they could create. If all of this is true, than the General's right; the Reapers have been using this facility far longer than any of us can imagine, using husks of some form from the previous cycle to perform this task of gathering and processing."

"That explains the how, but not the why. That's what I'm more interested in knowing, Bev."

Shepard called to EDI again, "So it's not alive yet? We can still stop it from being…created?"

Rang looked to the Commander with skepticism, "Uh created, yeah I think we're far beyond that stage. Activated, maybe."

"The process can be stopped, but it is unclear exactly how much it has developed. I cannot, for example, tell you if it has awareness."

"This thing is an abomination. EDI, how do we destroy it?"

"The large tubes injecting the fluid are a weak structural link." The squad watched as the orange luminescent fluid, presumably the processed colonists, was injected through the four metal tubes and 'stone' pipes, "Destroying them should cause the supports to collapse, and the Reaper to fall."

Prudii tapped the squad to an incoming platform from behind the Reaper's head. "Give us a minute, EDI. We've got to take care of some old friends first."

The squad moved into position preparing to overwhelm the Collectors before it could dock. Prudii initiated the attack, killing one of the drones as the other was controlled by Harbinger. One of the Collectors had a moderate barrier but Aran quickly cut it down before falling back into cover as the particle beam attacked him. Miranda grabbed the Collector in a biotic field, lifting it in the air before slamming it back down to the ground. The Harbinger boosted Collector fired a fireball from its hand, keeping Bev down. Tali fired her shotgun at the other Collector giving Shepard the chance to end it using the Revenant.

"My attacks will tear you apart." The possessed Collector launched one of those black hole attacks directed at Prudii. The attack didn't hit him but the aftershock from proximity knocked the commando to the floor.

"And my attacks will blow you to dust!" Rang tossed a grenade to it. Harbinger ignored it as he fired another fireball at Rang this time. As the ball of energy left the Collector's claws the grenade exploded, taking it out. The attacked fizzled to a spark lightly grazed Rang's chest. "Talk about timing?"

"Commandos! Snipers up!" All four commandos had switched their DC's current components for its sniper rifle as each took aim at a tube as they filled with fluid again. "Fire!" Sigma Squad hit their marks, all four sniper punched a hole into the tubes forcing the pressure difference to destroy the tubes.

While the debris was still falling, the Reaper's own mass started to work against it as the head fell forward. Shepard's team stepped back but Sigma Squad simply turned their rifles onto the head waiting for any signs of activation. The left arm broke free dragging the other arm down with it. Everyone moved forward to watch the Reaper fall ensuring it didn't climb back up.

With no signs of activity, Sigma Squad moved back to the main control. "Shepard to ground team. Status report."

* * *

Kasumi fired a burst from the Locust as Forta continued to mow Collectors down. After ensuring all of Rang's mines detonated, Lissarkh moved into close-quarters combat with her lightsaber as she sliced through Collectors and husks as one of Vren's drone provided cover for her. "It's Thane. We are holding, but they keep coming. A quick exit is preferable."

* * *

"Copy that. Dagger, time to pack it up. In a few minutes this place will be nothing but dust."

Sigma Squad found the central platform and showed the Commander while he was on call, "Joker—prep the engines. We're about to overload this place and blow it sky high."

"Roger that, Commander." Shepard pulled the core out but just as he started to work on it a transmission came through, "Uh, Commander? I've got an incoming signal from the Illusive Man. EDI's patching it through."

The team gathered as Miranda's omni-tool activated to display a hologram of the Illusive Man. "Shepard. You've done the impossible."

"I still have to destroy the base."

"Not necessary. I have a better option. I'm looking at the schematics EDI uploaded. A timed radiation pulse would kill the remaining Collectors, but leave the machinery and technology intact. This is our chance, Shepard. They were building a Reaper. That knowledge—that framework—could save us."

Rang turned to his brothers, keeping this confidential between the four of them, "I knew this guy was nuts, but that's just _uj'ayl_ on the _uj'alayi_. Can we just destroy this place without his cosent now?"

Shepard however was disgusted by the suggestion, standing up to speak to the hologram directly, "They liquefied people. Turned them into something horrible. We have to destroy the base."

"Don't be short-sighted. Our best chance against the Reaper is to turn their own resources against them."

Miranda though had her own doubts, "I'm not so sure. Seeing it firsthand…using anything from this base seems like a betrayal."

"If we ignore this opportunity, that would be a betrayal," not even bothering to face Miranda to say it. "They were working directly with the Collectors. Who knows what information is buried there? This base is a gift. We can't just destroy it."

Aran wasn't going to let more lives be wasted here, having seen true Cerberus cells at work, "You're completely ruthless, Illusive Man. Next you'll want to grow your own Reaper test subjects for hell knows what kind of experiments, or your own Reaper kath hound to sic on your enemies."

"Look at the dead Reaper you found. An entire research team lost and you don't much care about them," Prudii pointed, "You'd send more people to their grave here just to salvage a few bits and pieces that aren't worth it."

The Illusive Man seemed disappointed, both at Shepard and the Mandalorians, "My goal is to save humanity from the Reapers. At any cost. I've never hidden that from you, Shepard. Any of you. Imagine how many lives could be saved if we keep this base intact and use it knowledge to thwart the Reapers. Imagine the lives that will be lost if we don't."

"No matter what kind of technology we might find, it's not worth it."

"Shepard. You died fighting for what you believed. I brought you back so you could keep fighting. Some would say what we did to you was going too far. But look what you've accomplished. I didn't discard you because I knew your value. Don't be so quick to discard this facility. Think of the potential."

"We'll fight and win without it. I won't let fear compromise who I am," turning his back, Shepard continued to work on the core.

The Illusive Man turned around, "Miranda—do not let Shepard destroy the base!"

"Or what? You'll replace me next?"

"I gave you an order, Miranda!"

"I've noticed. Consider this my resignation."

The Illusive Man turned back, "Shepard. Think about what's at stake. About everything Cerberus has done for you. You—" Miranda cut the signal, ending the discussion.

Prudii extended his hand to her. "Good job, Miranda," and she openly accepted the gesture.

With the core set Rang placed the charge and activated the timer. He lowered the core back down, "Alright, we've got ten minutes before everything's atomized. And squad, I'd like to be outside of the base before the fireworks start for a change."

The core was pressure sealed so not even the Collectors could undo the damage now. The team started to move back to the platform they arrived on just as violent vibrations started to shake them. "What the hell is causing this?"

"For once it's not me!" The Human-Reaper had activated and crawled its way back up to them. "That is one pissed off baby!"

"Everyone get to cover!"

Having found positions, Sigma Squad started to attack it. "That armor's too thick for conventional fire. We need to find its weak point."

"Hey I've got an idea, Bev. Look at the stomach and eyes, reminds me of an A-DSD if it had two faces. Think we can apply the same principle here?" Prudii was the first to test fire a shot. The sniper round caused fluid to leak out of the eye he shot. "Well that's official enough for me. So just aim for the big glowing part."

Rang tossed an Incinerate tech attack as the others joined in the assault. Shepard folded his Revenant, grabbing for the ML-77 Missile Launcher he'd been carrying, firing missiles at the Reaper. The Reaper's mouth started to gather a massive amount of energy as it overlooked them. Bev pulled back shouting, "Get down!" The Reaper unleashed the attack, splitting into several parts trying to hit everyone.

The Reaper quickly pulled its head down, as best described by Rang, "That thing is giving us the stalker eye." It only lasted for a few moments before it completely pulled itself down. "Was that it? It's running away?"

"No. It's just warming up." Prudii wasn't going to wait for it to come back, steadying his rifle for the next round. The Reaper appeared again. This time it was rampaging a bit as its 'tail' smashed through one of the platforms.

Now that the team had focal points for their assault, they started to pound hard against the Reaper. The Reaper ducked back down just as two missiles and a tech attack tried to follow after it. Sigma Squad had never faced an enemy, even a droid, on this scale but they just treated it like an advanced dwarf spider droid with more mobility and more devastating attacks.

The Reaper reappeared again, this time it seemed to be taunting them. It swayed its head to the left and quickly swayed to the right, barely giving them a chance to fire on it. It pulled its head back down, pausing as it gave them that eerie stare before vanishing below. Prudii had enough of this thing. He grabbed the Widow, setting it up to fire on the larger eye. There was a three second window as the Reaper pulled itself up from bellow. Prudii pulled the trigger just as the head came into view. The shot breached the eye, coupled with the damage already done to it, caused a chain reaction as the other eyes and the core started to burn.

The Reaper reached out with its right arm as the team moved back. When power finally failed, the Reaper fell onto the remaining platforms. Everyone tried to keep themselves from falling over as the Reaper uncontrollably started to pull other platforms down with it. Tali unfortunately lost her footing, slipping onto a platform that started to lean down because of the Reaper's mass. The grade was too steep and there was nothing for her to grab a hold of. Prudii dove for her, trying his hardest to grab her hand. "_Vod_!" Bev had used his force pike to keep himself level, but he quickly retracted the weapon to toss to his brother, using his vibroblade to stay on the platform.

Prudii grabbed the weapon with his right as his left hand continued to try and grab Tali. Her fingers had just grazed his for a moment but she continued to slide down. She slide off but at the last moment Prudii was able to reach out to her and got a firm grip on her arm. Prudii rammed the force pike into the platform just as his left leg was swung out over the edge. "Hold on!"

With the Reaper off the platform leveled out giving them a place to crawl onto. Prudii helped her up back on as she started to pull herself up. The Reaper finally exploded, destabilizing the entire ring and the other platforms around them. Prudii pulled the pike out of the platform as he and Tali started to roll back to the other platform. "Everyone to Prudii's platform, now!" As the platforms rapidly descended another was falling toward them until it crashed into them, knock out the passengers.

* * *

**A/N: **The only reason Miri was there was for that one scene.

**Mando'a Translation:**

uj'ayl(oo-JAY-ul)- thick scented syrup used in cooking

uj'alayi(oo-jah-LIE-ee)- uj cake - dense, very sweet flat cake made of ground nuts, syrup, pureed dried fruit and spice


	68. One battle ends, another begins…

The platform had crashed into a balcony, with metal plates on top some of them. Rang's suit started to shock his nerves, "Uh…_rayshe'a_ _buir_…I'll take the extra training time…" The shock got stronger until he finally awakened. "Uh…" His eyes took a moment to readjust. His HUD displayed a timer across his entire visor in bold red numbers counting down. "Aw fuck…"

Rang noticed Shepard as he lifted himself up from being under a piece of debris. Rang helped the Commander, lifting the metal sheet off him. "The others…"

"Scattered about here, hopefully, we just need to wake them." Rang then rushed over to his brother as he started to shake him, "Bev…Bev. Come on Bev. Don't do this to me. Beviin…"

The commando groaned as he got back to his feet. "Where…where are the others?"

"Around," turning his head to an unconscious Araniik, "but I don't see Prudii…" as Shepard helped Miranda up, Rang and Bev woke Aran.

Aran looked around, spotting Tali underneath a metal plate. But the angle seemed wrong. "Prudii!" Shepard and Aran threw the plate off the platform revealing Prudii had taken most of the plate on himself. Shepard helped Tali to her feet as Aran grabbed Prudii's arm. Prudii handed his brother back his force pike before popping his left arm back into place.

As much as Rang wanted to ensure everyone was fine, they didn't have the time, "Now that everyone's back on their feet, we should vamoose if we don't want to be vaped with the base."

The squad's comms came back to life, "…I don't care! The General says their still alive and I'll keep hailing until the last second! Sigma Squad, this is the Advisor, report! Anyone, please respond!"

"This is Sigma Squad. Commander Shepard is here as well. What's your SITREP? Is everyone out?"

"Thank the Force. All survivors on board and accounted for. We're just waiting for you guy so we can…"

The transmission was cut by interference. A seeker swarm was approaching them and they started to run as Harbinger spoke to them, "Humans, you've changed nothing. Your species has the attention of those infinitely your greater." Shepard fired into the swarm with his pistol as he covered the others. Rang planted two charges onto the walls of the narrow passage, waiting for the entire swarm to be in range of the blast radii. "That which you know as Reapers are your salvation through destruction."

Aran was now leading the team in their run. One of the passages had Collectors waiting as they spotted the group running. Aran pulled out his ACP repeater and sprayed them all with bullets, killing a few while injuring the rest. Racing through the tunnels more Collectors started to give chase as volleys of shots and rockets were fired on the group with many close calls. Beviin and Prudii turned around with their DC-17m in assault rifle configuration and fired as they continued to retreat. Aran and Rang tapped their brothers, picking up the fight, giving the others time to retreat without worrying about their six. Sigma Squad continuously swapped between defenders as they retreated, keeping pace with the Commander.

The path was coming to an end as Miranda and Tali started to climb up a hill. The _Normandy_ arrived, pulling up to pick up the team. The airlock opened with Kix and a Viper sniper rifle ready. The multi-shot sniper attacked several Collectors, giving Sigma Squad the cover they needed to fully retreat. Metal beams started to crash down from the ceiling as Miranda and Tali jumped into the opened airlock. One of the beams had the unfortunate opportunity to take out the platform Shepard and the other needed to enter the airlock. Sigma Squad turned their full attention back to the Collectors as they killed them one by one, slowly walking back up the hill. The gunship pulled out of the _Normandy _to provide air support, firing a missile into the mass of Collectors. Rook continued the assault as the cabin doors opened to reveal Vren and Aay'han as they opened fire to cover them now. Dagger was right on top of the hill to allow Shepard and Sigma Squad to board. With confirmation of their passengers' safety the gunship fell back to the hangar.

Kix closed the airlock and returned to the cockpit, the _Normandy_ pulled away as Collectors continued to attack them with their assault rifles. "Kix! We've got less than ten to book it before…"

"Yeah I get it! And if it's one of yours I'm sure we've got less." Kix grabbed a seat as he and Joker flew the _Normandy_ out of the base. "Take your seats everybody this is going to be close!"

* * *

Inside the Collector base, the Collector General attempted to save the base only for its efforts to be in vain as an explosion knocks it to the console, "You have failed." The Collector tried to push itself back up to work again, "We will find another way. Releasing control." The hologram of a Reaper disappeared as the General's eyes lost its glow. The Collector General reached out to the disappearing hologram, lost and confused without Harbinger's guidance for the first time in its life. As the inferno traveled its ways throughout the entire base, the Collector turned toward the blinding light as it was quickly engulfed by the flames.

* * *

Rang had C3 commandeer a few of the _Normandy_'s sensors to watch as the Collector base exploded. The shockwave alone was felt by the crew as Joker and Kix tried to get everyone out of the galactic core. Using data hacked by EDI the _Normandy_ activated the Omega 4 relay from a distance to escape just as the flames reached their position.

* * *

With a moment of silence, Shepard walked into the conference room, propping a fallen support beam out of his way. EDI activated the quantum entanglement communicator to a very disappointed Illusive Man, "Shepard. You're making a habit of costing me more than time and money."

"Too many lives were lost at that base. I'm not sorry it's gone."

"The first of many lives. The technology from that base could have secured human dominance in the galaxy. Against the Reapers and beyond."

"Human dominance, or just Cerberus?"

The Illusive Man got up from his seat as he walked toward the Commander, "Strength for Cerberus is strength for every human. Cerberus is humanity. I should have known you'd choke on the hard decisions. Too idealistic from the start."

"I'm not looking for your approval. Harbinger is coming, and he won't be alone. Humanity needs a leader who's looking out for them. From now on, I'm doing things my way, whether you agree or not."

The Illusive Man became furious, shouting, "Don't turn your back on me, Shepard! I made you. I brought you back from the dead."

"Joker. Lose this channel." Shepard walked away before the transmission was terminated. With a smirk on his face, Shepard finally felt good after speaking with the terrorist leader.

The Illusive Man returned to his seat, contemplating, as he gazed upon the star before him. Of the assets and personal he had just lost, and of the new plans he'd need to initiate…

* * *

As the _Normandy_ flew off toward a nebula the _Tervho_ flew escort. Crews from both ships had started to work on the damage the _Normandy_ had sustained from the assault. Mandalorians worked efficiently as they started to patch up the holes and fixed the tubes cut by the Oculi. Shepard walked through the hangar as Thane crossed his path, saluting along the way. Dagger and Swoop were working on their gunship as Legion, Jack, Garrus, Grunt, Tare and Prudii were clearing debris and checking weapons. Each member gave Shepard a solid stare and a confident nod before continuing at what they were doing prior. Joker was also there as he gave the Commander a datapad, filled with data EDI was able to mine from the Collector base.

Aran arrived to the hangar, having finished his work in navigation. "With your Cerberus connection truly severed, I think the Mandalorians are going to be able to fully support you. But you've always had our support against the Reapers."

"Thanks. We're going to need every ounce of support we can get."

"And with a Jedi included, she's worth an army or three alone." Lissarkh could be seen using the Force to hold up new plating for Rook to weld on with a fusioncutter.

"I appreciate you and your men's assistance in repairing the ship."

"The least we can. We used her for the assault. I'm sure you'd do the same for our bird if we'd used her." Aran moved his head closer to Shepard, whispering, "Also for keeping my brother safe while he was onboard. Through I'm more concerned about your crew. They were gathered to help destroy the Collectors, with little expectation of surviving." A point Shepard was fully aware of.

"Well I do have a mission from the Illusive Man I hadn't gotten around to yet. We could always fix that."

"I think we can arrange something. But first things first, I think you might want to talk to your crew. Two of them I know will be leaving the first chance you give them."

* * *

Having landed at a real dry-dock for more through repairs, Shepard gathered his team in the conference room once more to discuss their plans now since the mission they were recruited for was over. Mordin outright spoke his mind, "Missions to stop Collectors finished. Base in ruins. No need for me. Will return to Omega for a time. See how Daniel and others are faring."

Samara spoke up next, "My oath to you has been completed. I will return to asari space and return to my duties to the Code." She couldn't help but smile however, "But I can say it has been a rather enjoyable journey."

Grunt moved his way to Shepard throwing an arm out, "Battlemaster, I can't wait to slaughter things with you again, but I kinda promised Vren I'd go back to Tuchanka with him so he can teach me to be a real krogan."

Thane bowed respectfully to Shepard now, "I'm afraid I must also part ways with everyone as well. Life as an assassin has given me a long list of enemies who only wish to see me and those I care for dead. I leave so that I may protect you. But I can say it has been an honor to have worked with everyone here."

Zaeed had already left the _Normandy_ the moment she docked. He was paid in full to help Shepard by the Illusive Man and he did just that. As far as Massani was concerned his job was done, and thanks to Shepard, Vido was still alive somewhere and he planned to use his new found fortune to correct that.

* * *

In the _Tervho_'s hangar Vren was loading up his stuff into the shuttle as Kix was prepping the Kodiak. "Are you sure you don't want to stay around for a bit longer big guy?"

"Sorry Araniik, but I promised that pup I'd teach him a few things about being a real krogan. That and I need to learn the ways of Urdnot. I know their supposed to be the best strategists on all of Tuchanka, and since Wrex has other clans allied to Urdnot, well I've got a lot to live up to."

"I'm sure everything here will help you and that tank-born become the strongest of clan Urdnot." Aran threw out his arm as the krogan grabbed it, "Take care of yourself. And don't get too drowned in ryncol down there to call us every now and then."

Vren couldn't help but laugh, "I won't. Keep this lot alive while I'm gone. I'm sure it's going to be a bit harder without me there to scare the monsters for ya."

* * *

A few weeks had passed since the daring venture beyond the Omega 4 relay, the _Normandy_ was fully repaired now and Kix had returned no more than a day ago after dropping people off at their desired locations. The _Tervho_ changed her IFF again to remain somewhat inconspicuous as they continued to travel with the Commander and his crew. A few of the Mandalorians had even started to work on the _Normandy_ during this temporary alliance.

"This is definitely a new experience. Nothing like how Aran runs the _Tervho_, eh Zelon?"

The salarian could still feel Palva's talons on his injuries as he continued to work, "I don't mind not having as much control. I just wish they could do something about the Cerberus paint job and the AI."

"You do realize I can hear everything you are saying?" EDI chimed.

"Sorry, we've never had AIs watching us while we work, that's all."

"I would have thought the shock of having to work with an AI would put the two of you in a state of pause or uncertainty."

"Wait, was that supposed to be a joke?"

Zelon smiled, "At least they're not as bad as Rang's pranks, or painful. Hopefully this one's more like the little ones."

EDI's curiosity peaked, "I was not aware that the Mandalorians had multiple AI units working with them."

"Well Prudii has those two recon droids he's always carrying with him. And with the latest addition of C3, I think the only real difference between those three and you is that we can understand you without someone interpreting their beeping for us. It's the geth I'm more concerned about."

"Yeah, but Prudii says it's alright so we're giving it the benefit of the doubt for the time being."

"Thank you."

"For what, EDI?"

"For not letting predispositions of geth and AI discourage you from working with us."

"Well, truth be told, Prudii and the others put their lives in the…circuits of those recon droids on several occasions, so I guess you could say we've had some practice already…"

"That and Prudii's good word about you two was the tipper."

* * *

Aran was overviewing the coordinates to the secret Cerberus facility on the _Tervho_'s galaxy map. It led to a remotely colonized world in the Typhon system. "The Illusive Man's smart to hide a research station on Aite, constant civil wars and pirate raids make perfect excuses for excessive defenses."

Tare pulled the galaxy map back a bit, "Add the fact that Litae, its largest moon, has an unstable and decaying orbit, I doubt anyone would want to look here for long."

Aay'han looked at the planet and its ring, "Is there anything of interest on or about the planet that would make this Illusive Man want to have a research station here."

"Given how project names usually correspond with the cell's intended goal, I think Project Overlord needs to be shut down before whatever they let lose can wreck the galaxy."

The radio buzzed from the hangar, "And the _Ne'tra Kyr'am_ is ready to get you boys there."

"Nice name bros. Luck that's in _Mando'a_ otherwise Earthlings might misinterpret the name for an ancient plague."

The Mandalorian assault team that was still on the _Tervho _boarded the gunship, newly christened the _Ne'tra Kyr'am_, as the Mandalorians on the _Normandy_ boarded the Hammerhead tank alongside Shepard and Miranda.

* * *

Landing on Aite Prudii kicked open the Hammerhead's hatch as he quickly jumped out followed by Forta. "That thing's too small for five."

"We apologize. Our network has detected unusual activity. We requested Shepard-Commander to bring us for this mission."

The gunship soon arrived, hovering a bit above the ground as the team jumped out. "Secure the area."

Nyona fired her pistol at the security cameras around the area as the others moved to investigate the corners. "Clear."

"Nothing over here."

"Open terrain behind the wall, otherwise no activity."

As the Mandalorians regrouped with Shepard the PA system buzzed to life, "Thank god you came! My name is Dr. Gavin Archer. The situation is urgent—we're facing a catastrophic VI breakout. I'll explain the details later, but you must retract that transmission dish! The controls aren't far from your position. You have to hurry!"

"Well that explains a lot doc…"

Aran turned to the others, "Aay'han, I want you and Kix to secure the LZ with Dagger. General…" Lissarkh drew out her lightsaber moving toward the sealed building. The black blade shimmered in the light before she jammed it into the wall, cutting a circle out. Finishing, Lissarkh pulled the piece out of the wall as it slammed onto the ground before her talons. "We'll look for survivors."

Shepard nodded, "I'll take my team and retract the dish."

"Prudii, Rasen and Beviin are joining you, Commander. Mandalorians, move it out!" Aran entered the opening first as the other followed his lead.

Bev moved to the destroyed security camera, checking the network. As he started to check the system something attacked him. His omni-tool deactivated as an electric charge ran through his suit. "What the hell?"

"What happened?"

Beviin checked his suit, "It looks like someone was trying to hack into my suit's systems through my omni-tool."

Miranda looked upon Bev's arm, "And it failed?"

Bev activated his omni-tool as he checked it, "I've encrypted all of my gear using a mix of Mandalorian and Aurebesh, along with unique algorithms for every system. There's no data on the extranet about either the languages or the algorithms, so no one outside of the _Tervho_ could even attempt to access anything. A good way of screwing over slicers who think they're hot."

Rasen didn't like this, "It's bad enough that it's a Cerberus facility, but now we have to deal with someone trying to hack us if we attempt to interface with the network."

Miranda looked around, "It should be on a closed system, so it's not an external attack…"

"All the more troubling. The doctor did say something about a VI breakout. But because it's Cerberus it's probably going to be worse…"

Shepard turned to Prudii, "How could it be worse?"

"You saw what they did to Jack and the children on Pargia. We've found facilities where they were dissecting live subjects."

"Whatever it may be, we have to purge it from the galaxy." Bev opened the door as Shepard entered cautiously.

Prudii shot out another camera before it turned its way toward them. As they continued, one of the few active monitor started to flicker between scenes, "Over here—on the monitor." A balding man, with a similar hairline to Udina appeared on the monitor. "Ah, there you are. I've locked myself in a computer room on the far side of the base. There are geth on the loose. A rogue VI program has seized control and…I've lost a lot of friends today. I'd hate to see you join them. Please watch yourself."

"Araniik…"

"We heard, Bev. We're taking all precautions; shutting off all nonessential lighting and securing networks. Kix."

"Yeah, yeah," he loaded his assault rifle, "Keep our eyes sharp and have that little one scan for them. The others are gearing up now too."

Prudii turned to their geth, "Legion, think you can explain this one?"

Legion's faceplates started to flash open as its sensors started to scan the immediate area. "There are currently no geth active on Aite beyond this platform. We detect an unusual signal being broadcasted over secured data streams."

"The heretics?" Shepard asked.

"No. Heretic signals are familiar to geth. This is…strange. Unknown. Chaotic. Unlike any known data stream we have encountered."

Rasen had a thought, "Have the geth ever visited Aite, before or after the Morning War?"

"One moment." Legion accessed a FTL comm. buoy to search the geth collective. "Yes. Records indicate a geth dropship was sent to this system. There is no data after that. Geth were assumed to have been destroyed. No further inquiry was sent to investigate."

"Instead, it sounds like Cerberus found it and started to experiment on the platforms left behind."

"That is a likely scenario, Miranda Lawson."

Prudii grabbed his pistol and walked away from the group, "Well whatever's going on, we better shut this place down." He passed the main hall to fire on the glass to the hangar controls. Bev drew out his force pike as he cleared the ledge of the remaining glass fragments for the others. "As Rang would say, rank before beauty."

* * *

**A/N: **I've decided to give myself an avatar here on fanfic, but the thing is I'm crap at shading. If someone would like to assist me I'd really appreciate it. Just pm me so we can talk in private.

**Mando'a Translation:**

rayshe'a buir(ray-SHEE-ah boo-EER)- five minutes mom

Ne'tra Kyr'am(NAY-trah kee-RAHM)- Black Death


	69. Ditching the Dish

**A/N: **Well that Rebellion pack has been fun, although I really would want that krogan vanguard and geth infiltrator.

* * *

Lissarkh had ventured on, far ahead of the others prompting Forta to question this unusual behavior, "Can we really just let her go off on her own like that?"

"She's a Jedi. She'll be fine."

"Yes, but we're dealing with geth. She hasn't fought against geth in the dark. She'll be at a severe disadvantage without her helmet."

Aran could help as a small chuckle escaped, "She'd be handicapped with her helmet on, _vod_. We've never told you guys this, but Trandoshan eyes are naturally capable of seeing into the infrared."

"Not to mention a Trando's schnoz can sniff out almost anything. So if anyone's in trouble, Tare, it's the geth."

* * *

Lissarkh could smell the decay of many human bodies along the floor, though she hadn't encountered any geth bodies, active or otherwise. A green light started to flood the end of the hall, prompting Lissarkh to move to cover. As she watched the light get brighter, Lissarkh reached for her lightsaber waiting to confirm the light came from a geth. It was a lone geth on patrol, though unlike geth units she had encountered prior, this geth's entire body was glowing in the strange green light as what appeared to be data fragments escaping its eye. Lissarkh quickly withdrew her head as the geth turned to look down the narrow passageway.

The light started to move closer to Lissarkh, unaware that she was still monitoring it. The geth turned to look down every possible hiding place as it walked over the corpses, but the geth failed to look up, a fatal mistake many others have also made. Lissarkh let go of the pipes as she used the Force to soften her landing with absolutely no sound produced. In an instant, she grabbed the geth by its neck with the Force, keeping the optic looking up as her lightsaber was used to carve into the machine's body. There was a scream that came from the geth, almost human in nature, as the green glow disappeared the body became limp and lifeless.

She released her hold over the geth, letting it collapse onto the floor. "Lissarkh here. I've encountered a lone geth unit. Something was different about it compared to the geth on the _Alerai_ and that cargo vessel."

"Different how?"

Lissarkh started to move the remains around with her toes, "There was a strange glow emanating from the body and what seemed to be data bits coming out of it."

"Data bits? Are you sure about that General, I mean I'm not questioning you or nothing, but I doubt we'd be able to see such thing without something to aid us. Or maybe C3."

"I know what I saw. Something else is controlling these bodies." Lissarkh hushed her mind as she tried to use the Force to understand what has happened. "Nearly all of the Cerberus members stationed here are dead. And…" Lissarkh slowly placed her hand onto the geth before she had to pull away, scream.

"General!" The others were now rushing to catch up with the Jedi.

"The pain…the indescribable pain…"

* * *

After listening to a few logs by Dr. Archer, they found the dish controls. Prudii shot out the nearby cameras as Bev got to work retracting the dish. Just as the dish itself was about to go under it was abruptly halted, "System error," reported the computer.

A moment after the automated report every monitor in the room turned green as what appeared to be a face made out of green blocks displayed, shouting in a high pitch, almost like white noise but with a more distinguished patter of highs and lows. The images disappeared as remnants of the program remained on a few of the monitors. "Damn it!" Archer appeared on the TV monitor, "The VI's overridden the controls. We have to stop him—he's trying to upload his program off-planet. Destroy the antennae inside the dish. There's a tram on the lower level. Get to it as fast as you can!"

"Bev."

"Yeah, I heard."

"What?"

The commando attempted to hack the systems, but to no avail, "The doctor called the VI a 'he'. Most people in this galaxy would normally refer to VIs as 'it'. The Avina program on the Citadel is normally referred to as it, where as someone like Dagger or Aay'han might call Avina 'she'. So why is Archer giving this VI a gender?" Bev gave them no time to answer his rhetorical question before he smashed the console, "There's nothing we can do from here. We have to do this the Rang way."

Rasen started to shake her head, "I hate when we have to do things the Rang way."

As the team continued the VI's 'face' continued to follow them, appearing on monitors as though it was watching them progress. It tried speaking to them again but to no avail. Miranda turned to their resident geth, "Legion, can't you understand what it's trying to say?"

"No. Geth do not need to communicate via audio vocalization. However, the VI does seem to be incorporating known geth patterns."

"A simple no would have done for this situation." Prudii stopped the others at the door. Grabbing his pistol, the commando activated his stealth cloak and opened the door. There was another camera but this camera had the same green glow as the VI's image. It was looking directly at Prudii. He shot out the camera as the VI started to shout out again. "Careful. That thing could have more under its control."

"We've got casualties." Bev moved to examine the guy hung over the railing as Miranda checked the vitals on the man lying on the floor. Prudii shot out the other camera as he waited for them. "KIA. There's nothing we can do now."

The system's regular VI seemed to react to proximity, as Prudii moved closer to the stairs. "This is an automated security update. Geth activity has been detected. Please remain at your workstations until the all-clear is given."

"No real vote of confidence if they have that announcement ready to play."

* * *

Aran found Lissarkh as she was on her knees over the disabled geth body. "General!"

"…His screams…the pain he is suffering…"

Aran tried to get Lissarkh back to her feet, "General, we have to keep moving."

Tare walked up to the two, "Araniik, we've got movement coming our way. We need to get to better positions."

Lissarkh pulled herself up, murmuring to herself, "Sometimes I think my connection to the Force is more of a curse than a gift…"

"_Nari_!" Gunfire started to get louder as Nyona and Forta ran their way. "The hall's crawling with geth."

"Where's Rang?" An explosion soon erupted as the dust rushed past the group, "Rang…" Aran rushed off in an attempt to find his brother. As he tried to travel through the dust clouds, his foot kicked a geth arm. "Rang!"

Coughing could be heard as Aran continued to search. "Help a _vod_ out of this scrap heap."

Aran found a pill of geth and Rang's arm sticking out of it. He pulled him out as he hugged him, "I thought I lost you. What caused the explosion?"

"_Tion'ad_? I EMP'd myself and this mess around me. Before my visor died I noticed a group of geth coming toward me so I toss a frag at that water heater and prayed the scrap would shield me from the blast, one of my luckier moments I think." Rang's visor and pack reactivated, "The General was right about something else controlling the tinnies. They weren't fighting like they usually do. Hell, they actually surprised us."

* * *

With Legion's assistance, the team quickly cut through the VI controlled geth. Beviin remained on the lower level as Shepard led the others above the kitchen. The geth were focused on Shepard's group allowing Bev the chance to flank them with CQC using his force pike.

Legion rewrote a geth destroyer to fight for them just as Miranda overloaded the systems of a geth trooper. Bev was about to corner a group of geth troopers fighting the Commander only for more geth to attack him from the tram. Bev fell back as a rocket flew through the entrance. The lone commando returned fire, focusing on the rocket troopers after destroying a security camera under the VI's control.

Bev could still hear the others fighting above him so he burdened himself with removing this group of geth on his own, ensuing he gained their full attention. Bev fell one of the rocket troopers then retreated back to where they first fought off against these controlled geth as he prepared for them. As the second rocket trooper was about to exit the kitchen, Beviin's force pike smashed through its eye. The other geth moved to cover behind the kitchen counter expecting Bev to go on the offensive.

* * *

Rasen finished the last geth trooper with a close up blast with her Katana shotgun as started to look around. "Where's Bev?"

Prudii walked over to the stairs expecting to find his pod brother. "Destroyed camera and rocket geth. More geth probably showed up. Can't be too far." Now they could hear the distinct fire from a geth pulse rifle below them.

Prudii and Shepard ran back around the stairs as Rasen rushed to the kitchen. She found a geth destroyer as it moved toward the other entrance. She fired on the destroyer attempting to lead it way from Bev. The geth turned on her as the flames started to singe her armor. Beviin appeared from behind the wall as he tried to grab the geth's attention again, ignoring the other the other geth in his efforts to keep Rasen safe. Prudii and the Commander opened fire on the remaining geth troopers, relieving the two Mandalorians of the trouble.

The destroyer was right on top of Bev now with one of its tanks flaming, it was trying to take catch Bev in the blast. Prudii fired his last two sniper rounds to push the destroyer back just before it exploded into goo and parts.

Prudii walked over to his brother, "That was reckless."

Beviin switched over to private comm. channels with Prudii, "Rang has done worse."

"He usually warns us beforehand."

Bev turned back to see Rasen walking toward them, "I'm sure you'd've done the same thing if Tali was here." Prudii couldn't argue, but he did throw his arm out to his brother, who gladly grasped it. Switching his mic back on, Bev waved to Shepard, "Let's keep moving, I don't think the VI plans to wait for us before it attempts to leave again."

Going around the makeshift barricade, the team entered a tram loading area where classical piano music was playing and where two more dead Cerberus scientists were left where they fell. Legion scouted the tram on its own; ensuring their means of transportation was safe. "Clear."

As the team entered, Prudii dreaded it. "Ugh. It had to be a glass box."

Bev ran into his brother's arm, "At least ones shooting at us this time."

With the tram activated, the team watched as the dish was being repositioned. "Damn it all," Dr. Archer contacted them through the tram's speaker, "he's aligning the dish to a new upload target! He'll have a clear line of sight to our satellite! This is going to be tight."

"Arriving at dish access." The automated system unlocked the door leading to a hallway with more bodies. "Attention: Satellite broadcast window opening soon. All upload data must be approved by your department supervisor."

"Beviin reporting. We're reached the transmission dish. Implementing Rang #3."

"Whoa, whoa, slow down! Rang 3? Are you sure you want to that on a dish? Why not go with #12 instead?"

"No time. If we want to stop this 'VI' from leaving, Rang 3 is the only way we can ensure that. Beviin out."

Shepard stopped Beviin, "What exactly is a 'Rang #3'?"

Prudii walked passed him, "Rang Maneuver #3; a last ditch maneuver when cover is blown or we're out of time: Rush in, destroy the target, pray we live. Maneuver 12 involves remote detonators at the base of the tower and support structures. Time we can't waste going down and back up."

* * *

Aran's team made great progress through the rest of the facility and found a manifesto of the team stationed on the planet. Beyond the initial scout and ambush, they hadn't seen any more geth. The team started to gather the bodies outside in the courtyard and used the caskets Cerberus conveniently had ready for this station. "Even for a Cerberus station, I can't help but feel sorry for them."

Lissarkh seemed to understand some of Tare sympathy, "Is it the fact that they died believing they were helping humanity in some form, or because of their own experimentation on the geth?"

Aran place another body into a casket before he turned back to Lissarkh "General, you spoke about someone screaming, their pain. Were you talking about the scientist here?"

"No. It was through the geth."

"Geth are machines. How can it feel pain?"

Lissarkh hissed at Nyona, "It was not the droid whose pain I felt. It was someone else's. The very Force screamed of his torment through the machine. I barely touched it yet I could not ignore his suffering. This Cerberus…I can understand why you hold such…contempt towards the organization."

"Can you tell what exactly has been going on?"

"No, nothing specific. But I can say the one I speak of is somehow connected to Dr. Archer."

Kix sneered, "So just treat the guy how we normally treat a Cerberus agent; with scorn and believe that half the crap he tells us is a lie. Like we needed a psychic to tell us that?"

"Stow it Lizard. I'm more concern with how Bev and the others are doing. And hoping they don't do anything that will risk their lives even further."

"Dagger, Swoop, think you guys can fly pick up?"

"From a Rang 3," Dagger turned back to the _Ne'tra Kyr'am,_ "My main concerns are how much room we're gonna have flying out when it blows and how the dish is gonna falls apart."

"So that's a no?"

"Hey we didn't say no, scary lady, we're just listing our concerns." Swoop loaded his rifle back into the gunship, "Rook, Jak, let get to it, your second official mission to rescue members of Sigma Squad."

* * *

Shepard's team pushed through the geth defenders outside of the dish as the automated announcements about the dish's window and message approval. Inside the team was cutting a swath through the geth defenders, Bev activated his omni-blades, jabbing a geth through its chest, pinning it a pillar as his second blade severed tubes in the machine's neck nearly decapitating it. While Legion distracted the Prime, Prudii disappeared and reappeared behind one of the troopers flanking the behemoth as he disabled it with his vibroblades. The Prime turned around to smack the commando back, though Prudii was able to use the disable geth to take most of the impact for him, the force was still enough to send him and the geth 'shield' against one of the support pillars a few feet behind. Miranda disabled the Prime's weapons with an Overload as Shepard and Legion worked to finish it for good.

With the lower level cleared now, Miranda helped Prudii back to his feet, "That was rather reckless."

"Guess I picked that up from my _utreekov vod_." Prudii examined the geth as he found an impression of the Prime's arm imbedded into the geth's body, "I've only been hit by a Prime one other time, though the last one was heavily damaged. This one didn't hold back. Looks like I got lucky."

"Correction. We damaged the Prime unit's motivators. Physical capabilities reduced by 20%."

"Guess I owe you a favor, Legion."

Beviin moved up the stairs as he surveyed the dish lay out. The team soon received a transmission from Archer, "You need to destroy the support struts now. They have their own capacitors—try blowing them up!"

Bev activated his thermal scanner as he looked around the strut. "I'm detecting a number of heavy geth units waiting up here. Looks like this 'VI' has prepared a good sized party just for us."

"Let's not be rude and ignore the invite." Prudii moved up as he took position behind some of the tubes running across the dish's surface. Bev was covering the other side as Rasen lowered the covering to the first capacitor. "They're on to us!"

A rocket hit Prudii's position before he returned fire on the geth. Bev was also attacked by a rocket trooper as a destroyer moved on both sides. Shepard shot at the capacitor, destroying the connection. The VI started to scream over several channels before the station's VI reported, "Warning: Structural integrity of dish has been compromised."

Rasen and Legion assisted Bev in dealing with the destroyer and rocket trooper as Miranda, Prudii and Shepard attacked the rocket trooper and the Prime that walked around from the other side. Bev. Legion and Rasen started to aid the others against the Prime after dealing with their side. With the combined effort of the six man squad the Prime was quickly dealt with. Beviin turned back as his scanner detected more heat signatures approaching from below. "Commander, we need to take out two more capacitors before this thing is gone." The thermal scanner activated as the light started to cover the floor. "I'm detecting a massive amount of heat signatures heard our way. I advise we split into two groups and destroy them simultaneously."

"Alright. Miranda, Legion let move!"

As the Mandalorians rushed to the other capacitor, Rasen couldn't help but harbor doubt, "Do you really think we'll be able to get off before this place falls to pieces?"

Prudii assured her, "We didn't survive Cartao to die on a satellite. We'll find a way."

"But the walkway we used is on the opposite side of the capacitor we're going to destroy. If this place starts to fall apart after the capacitors are destroyed…"

"We'll find a way." Bev turned to Rasen, gazing into her visor, "We always find a way." Bev activated the console to lower the shielding. "We're ready on your word, Commander."

Shepard aimed his Revenant at the capacitor, "Fire!" The two sides detonated within milliseconds of one another as the support struts started to fall apart."

"You've done it! You've severed the link to the satellite!" Archer congratulating them on their apparent success from wherever room he's hiding in.

Shepard started to return to their entry point but the tip of the antenna crashed down behind the Commander, whose reflexes causes him to draw his pistol as he turned around. Looking up he watched as the rest of the antenna started to fall, "You've got to be kidding…" Shepard and Legion moved as a piece almost crushed them, "Move! The whole thing's giving way!" running toward the walkway in the hope that they might be able to jump off before it fell apart below their feet.

As the Mandalorians tried to rejoin Shepard, their route was cut off by debris. A familiar signal started to broadcast over shortwave transmission, "Looks like you guys could use some help." The _Ne'tra Kyr'am_ dove down as they watched the dish falling upon its own weight. "Rendezvous on the west side of the dish before it fall off," opposite to where the Commander was running.

The Mandalorians rushed into a full run as the gunship arrived to meet them with its doors open. The trio jumped in just as dish as a whole finally broke apart. The _Ne'tra Kyr'am_ pulled out just before one of the support beams could cleave one of her wings. "Next time Rook, I get the port gun."

"What about Shepard?"

Dagger flew over to confirm Shepard and the others were able to jump off the dish before it collapsed. As the smoke cleared, a man rushed toward the Commander, "Over here!"

"What the hell is going on around here?"

The dust settled to reveal the man to be Dr. Archer, who paused before answering Shepard, "Man's reach exceeding his grasp. Come on, I'll explain." As Shepard followed the doctor, Dagger and Swoop took the others back to the LZ for a debriefing with Aran and the others.

* * *

**A/N: **Murphy's law, what a pain. Now with this new image thing we've got I really need someone with artistic fingers to help me with giving this(amd maybe the others) an art cover.

**Mandalorian Translation:**

Nari(NAH-ree)- move, action, act

Tion'ad?(tee-on-AD)- Who else?

utreekov(oo-TREE-kov)- fool, idiot (lit. emptyhead)


	70. One down, Three to go

**A/N: **I've decided to make a simple addition for dialog sake, havinging "_italicizing radio chatter with characters not in the area of the focus group, might go back and do this to previous chapters on a later date_".

* * *

The _Ne'tra Kyr'am_ returned to Aay'han and the others to help recover the bodies as Shepard and Aran spoke with Dr. Archer, "You have my thanks, Commander Shepard. You bought us some time, though probably not much. This isn't over yet."

"You owe us that explanation, doctor and it better be a good one."

"This is Project Overlord. An attempt to gain influence over the geth by interfacing a human mind with a VI. The results have been…less than satisfactory," looking down to Miranda as she started to move one of his dead colleagues.

Shepard nudged Aran, "I'd hate to see what he'd be called a disaster."

Archer's face became flustered as he turned back to the duo, "You can't dismiss the entire project. We did succeed, at least partially. My brother David volunteered to serve as a test subject…"

Aran grabbed Dr. Archer by the collar as he slammed him against the glass, "Your own brother! You didn't even try to stop him you monster!" Aran's left arm released as he drew his gauntlet vibroblade in front of Archer's face, as a warning.

"Please you have to understand…I…I would never do anything to harm David…" Shepard grabbed Aran's arm and lowered his blade, though the Mandalorian had obvious doubts, he released Archer. "I appreciate your concern, but I did everything I could to keep him safe." Archer took a moment to recover from the Mandalorian's grip, "Unfortunately his mind couldn't handle the VI connection." Archer unlocked a door to the security center to a view of Legion and the other Mandalorians cataloging the fallen scientists and moving bodies into caskets, "He's like a virus now, infecting our networks and seizing control of any technology he finds. It's why you had to destroy the dish. Imagine if his program got off-world."

Shepard conferred with Aran for a moment, "You going to be okay?"

"Yeah, sorry about that. Family matters usually set me off far easier than anything else. And with Cerberus…well, let's just say that if David isn't alive after all of this, don't expect the doctor to be either." Aran looked back to Dr. Archer, "I want more information from him before we shut this place down. I'll try to keep my temper in line this time."

Returning to Archer, Shepard started off, "How does he take control of electronics?"

"This is a hybrid intelligence the likes of which I've never seen. I don't know where the man ends and the machine begins."

"Beviin seemed to luck out. Your brother wasn't able hack his systems."

"Then he knows something about hybrid intelligence I don't."

Aran quickly pointed out, "That's because we've had a threat from cyborg slicers before. Have to build up security to where an organic mind can't compute and the computer half can't process. Bit of a balancing act but Bev's got it down to a science. But since everyone isn't as talented with encryptions as Bev, the worst-case scenario…"

"Would be a technological apocalypse. Every machine, every weapon, every computer could be turned against us. If he hit the extranet, who knows where it would end."

Shepard still had his bias against the organization for his lost unit on Akuze. "You should have considered that before you started the experiment."

"We couldn't be expected to account for every outcome!" Archer turned to the rows of caskets outside, "Certainly not the abomination David has become. Davi…the VI has fortified itself in the main laboratory at Atlas Station. It's in lockdown now. To enter, you need to manually override security from our facilities in the Prometheus and Vulcan Stations."

"How does the lockdown work?"

They watched as Archer moved to a console that was displaying three tubes on the monitor. "It's a fail-safe procedure in the event of an emergency. Normally, all three project leads have to agree to cancel the lockdown. I'm the only one left now." He lifted a valve as one of the tubes on the monitor opened and turned from red to green, "I can give my authorization, but you'll have to manually reset the other two yourselves."

"And what happens if we have to kill your brother?" to which Shepard turning to Aran.

Archer took a seat next to a picture of him and assumable his brother who seemed rather happy, "Let's just hope it doesn't come to that. Now let me ask you a question—is your friend here going to be a problem?" looking out to Legion as Prudii helped it with cataloging.

"If there's one geth in the galaxy who can't be brainwashed, it's him. Don't worry."

"I'll take your word for it."

* * *

"Another failed Cerberus experiment we end up cleaning. I both hate and love this."

Prudii placed another body into a casket, "Make up your mind, Rang."

"Hey it just like you and your 'love/hate' for my explosives, so I wouldn't be talking, Mr. Grump."

Miranda smiled as the two continued their brotherly argument. "So this is how you are with your brothers?"

Prudii looked to her, "More or less. Usually just this one," wrapping his arm around Rang's neck, "keeping his ass out of the fire long enough to use those explosives too."

Rang managed to free himself from his _vod_'s grip, "Details, details. My explosives wipe out more targets than your sniper rifle can in a single blast."

"More kills per mission…"

"Says the commando who almost never gives his kill count."

Before the two could continue on with their friendly disagreement, Aran and Shepard walked out of the security office. "Mandalorians, it seems Cerberus has inadvertently created a rouge cyborg using the doctor's brother as a test subject." Disgust could be seen through the body language of the other three members of Sigma Squad, though Rang didn't vocalize it like he normally would. "There are two more stations we have to hit before we can reach the cyborg. I'll take a squad with Miss Lawson and deal with geothermal power station, Vulcan Station."

"As you guys do that, Legion will guide myself and a squad through the crashed geth dropship they are using for Prometheus Station. Once both overrides have been activated we'll rendezvous at Atlas Station and unplug David. Any questions?"

"Just one," Rang pulled out a breach charge and started to toss it up in the air, "when do we get to kill Dr. Archer?" Rasen socked his arm, almost making the commando miss the charge as he stumbled to grab it before it hit the ground. "What? I'm kidding…sorta…"

* * *

Traveling in the Hammerhead with the Commander toward Prometheus Station were Legion, Bev and Rasen while the _Ne'tra Kyr'am _took Miranda and the rest of the Mandalorians over to Vulcan Station. Rang looked out of the slit in the doors to the lava flows below, "Looks almost as scary as Eos. Almost…"

"Miss. Lawson," Aran showed her the same amount of respect Prudii has displayed, though he still had personal doubt, "Do you believe you can provide accurate intel about any defenses we're expected to encounter in Vulcan Station?"

"I believe so," Miranda confidently stated as she activated her omni-tool. A hologram of a turret was displayed, "The most notable defenses we'll likely encounter outside of the station will be automated turrets. All of them are proximity sensitive so they aren't sitting out in the open for someone to destroy them from a distance." The image disappeared as new images emerged, "We'll probably encounter lots of security mechs and automated sentry drones inside the facility. The VI will probably have full control over all of the mechs but we might be able to use the facility's tight quarters and steam pipes to our advantage."

"I like the way you think Cerby! Let the firework display begin!"

Nyona smacked the back of the commando's head, "Save to explosions until after we find this override lever."

"Nyona's right. Miss. Lawson, Forta, Tare and Aay'han are going through the front door. We'll find a way in through the roof and you meet up inside."

The cabin's lighting shutdown as the red light came alive. The _Ne'tra Kyr'am _touched down just outside of the garage doors as Miranda led the group. With the first team on the group the gunship pulled away to check the roof. As they did Prudii moved closer to Lissarkh, "General, you don't seem well. Are you alright?"

"Your concern is greatly appreciated but it should not be necessary."

"It's David, you can feel him still, can't you?"

"Yes. His every attempt to escape his cyber prison. His every cry for help. Do not blame David Archer for his actions are not completely his own. Know that he is afraid and his mind confused by this interface, he cannot be reasoned with conventionally, but that does not mean we should give up on him." With the gunship's doors still open, Lissarkh jumped out to the rooftop as she surveyed the area before the others joined her. With lightsaber in claw, she started to cut an opening out.

* * *

As Miranda led the Mandalorians, Tare contacted Forta privately, "I don't like this."

"You seemed fine working with her during the Collector Base assault. Or is it because we're in a Cerberus facility captured by a rouge VI hybrid?"

"I didn't have to work with her directly back at the base. That and we're being led by this Cerberus bosh'tet!"

"I heard about what happened on Freedom's Progress. From what Prudii has told us, she's changed since then."

Tare could only look at Miranda with disgust as she unlocked the door, "She wanted to take Veetor to a Cerberus facility. You heard the Jedi, she can feel the pain of their test subject, a willing test subject. What would they have done to Veetor? Torture, brutish medical applications so he can tell them the exact same thing he told us? He told us everything he knew. He wouldn't lie to us, to me."

Miranda now was working to equalize the pressure on a valve to allow the team to proceed. "At least give her another shot, for Prudii's sake."

"Fine…but I still don't like this."

Tare proceeded on the walkway, passing the dead Cerberus scientist on the floor. Forta followed close behind him when he heard an unsettling sound coming from below. "Move!"

Forta still had time to jump back put Tare was already halfway on the plate. Tare ran for the other side hoping he'd make it before the section collapsed to the fan below. The plate gave way as he tried to grab the ledge. His fingers grazed the edge of other plate but didn't quite make it. Before he came close to the blades a biotic field grabbed hold of Tare as a magnet attached to his back. Miranda and Aay'han had grabbed Tare as they both pulled him out. "Just hold on, kid. Lawson, I need more vertical lift." Forta grabbed Tare as he helped him back on the platform. "Lucky I went for the grappling hook piece instead of the flamethrower gauntlet. You alright?"

"A little shaken but no worse for wear, as humans say." Tare turned to Miranda as he, despite the aggravated feeling in his stomach, bowed to her, "Thank you…"

"Anytime for one of Prudii's family," Miranda smiled before she looked around the area, "Looks like we need a new way around…"

Aay'han grabbed his pistol and shot at a pressure valve to their left, causing steam to knock over a group of heavy metal pipes out of the way. "How's that? From the looks on you two, I'd wager Sigma Squad never told you about their mission to infiltrate a Sep weapons factory through the ducts."

* * *

The M-44 Hammerhead easily traversed the open terrain leading to the crashed geth ship. Bev turned to Legion, "Geth, what type of defense will the VI will have at its disposal?"

"Unknown. We will have more data available when we are at the site."

"You have to have something. Armaments, number of platforms onboard? Something is better than nothing."

Legion's faceplates cycled open a few times as his optic focused on something. "Our archives have on record over three thousand geth were slated for this dropship. Over two hundred mobile platforms were provided, ranging from basic units to primes."

"That's something. Thank you. Prudii's description of your…reservedness was undertoned."

The Hammerhead had a perfect view of the ship and the massive cannon, protected by a shield, with several shield generators protected by shield of their own, guarding the entrance. "Now that's excessive."

"Geth defense cannon. Designed for anti-vehicle purposes. Hammerhead defenses will not withstand direct fire from the cannon. Outmaneuvering the cannon is our best defense. Recommend deactivating shield generators before assaulting cannon directly."

Shepard turned back to Legion, "Any suggestions on how we do that?"

"We can proceed with conventional methods, firing on the shields until the generators are exposed. That will give the cannon time to acquire a target lock on the Hammerhead. There is also the option of using the cannon to rapidly dispose of the shields and exposing the shield generators to an assault. The latter is far more hazardous but more efficient and requires less time."

"We'll play it by ear for now." Shepard drove the Hammerhead off the cliff and down to the small side valley where the ship and the cannon awaited them.

* * *

Lissarkh cut an opening for the team to enter the building. Prudii and Nyona scouted a pitch black room as the others waited for the all clear. The two separated as Nyona picked up the spare LOKI head lying about, "Looks like a maintenance bay for the security mechs."

"Heavy turret defense net outside. Could be expected they rely heavily on mechs for internal defense."

Nyona reactivated the room's lighting, "Come on down, everything's quite…for the moment."

The team lowered themselves down one by one and Rang couldn't help but kick over one of the deactivated mechs, "Damn LOKI's folded up like that remind me of B1s."

"They may be waiting for you to do that, Rang. Keep your eyes sharp."

"_Gu…S…p he…do yo…_" Kix smacked the side of his helmet hoping to clear up the static, but it persisted, "_…rea…Goi…ho…_"

Nyona grabbed the turian's arm, "It's not you. There's a signal jammer around here. That means we might have another survivor nearby." The Mandalorians split off into pairs, Nyona and Rang examined the northern part of the maintenance bay as Prudii and Lissarkh checked the area behind their entry point, leaving Aran and Kix to check out the rest of the room. Nyona noticed an unusual staking of crates and deactive mechs weren't right. Using her biotics, Nyona threw the piles aside to reveal a transmitter with two humans next to it. "We found 'em."

Rang checked their vitals, the man had a piece of shrapnel lodged in the side of his neck and back, "This one's dead." Rang pulled the woman over to find a large piece stick in her abdomen. He wasn't expecting anything different until he heard her moaning, "Oh, nasty work here. Too bad Tare ain't here, perfect time for another one of his psych sessions." Rang administered medi-gel to relieve some of the pain so he could remove the metal shard, "OK, this is going to hurt like hell."

Rang had a good grip on the plate as Nyona held the woman down so she wouldn't hurt herself should she struggle. "AHHHH!"

"Told ya." Rang tossed the piece aside as he started to disinfect the wound.

Nyona took a closer look at the transmitter before the others arrived. It seemed the two set up a signal jammer around the deactivated mechs so the VI couldn't overtake them. Given the damage to the two however, it seems they were trying to set up in a rush and the mech pile from before were the attackers. _Now the only question is how they got those shards stuck in them?_

The others arrived and Lissarkh aided in healing the injured Cerberus scientist so Aran could start questioning here. "So miss, looks like you might be able to fill in a few gaps for me that Dr. Archer might've conveniently forgotten to tell us. And don't think about lying, we have our own lie detector."

* * *

Shepard was able to maneuver the Hammerhead around the geth cannon so it destroyed the shields around the shield generators. With one last generator standing, he fired a volley of the Hammerhead's homing rockets as he pulled back away from the cannon's targeting. "Shield disabled. Recommend terminating cannon immediately."

"Easier said than done, Legion." Shepard activated the thrusters as the cannon tried to fire. Just when the cannon fired Shepard opened fire on the cannon. The first three missiles curved off and missed. Beviin corrected this error allowing the Commander to finish it more efficiently.

Twelve missiles were fired on the cannon before it finally fell apart. With the area secured, Bev checked in, "Beviin reporting. We've encountered heavy resistance on route to Prometheus Station. Hostiles have been dealt with and we're moving on to the dropship now."

"_This is the advisor, I copy, Bev._"

"Advisor? What happened to Araniik?"

"_We don't know. We recently lost contact with them. Swoop thinks there's some kind of interference near where they entered. They're giving them a few more minutes before they plan to investigate too._"

Bev turned to Rasen, "Copy. We'll update once we've activated the override."

"_Stay safe._"

Shepard heard part of the conversation as he asked, "You guys going to be OK?"

Bev grabbed his gear as he opened the hatch, "Everything's fine, sir. Let's proceed with our objective."

Rasen jumped out as she tried to catch up with him, "Bev, you don't have to hide your emotions, especially around me about Aran and the others." She grabbed his arm and laid her head against his shoulder, "I'm worried about them too. But I know they'll make it through. Like you said, you guys always find a way." Bev graced the side of her helmet with his hand as the two continued toward the airlock Cerberus established as they waited for Legion to guide them through.

* * *

**A/N: **Oh and good news(depends on you), apparently the EC will be here very soon. Bioware has given us a release date of June 26 for North America, and July 1(i think) for everyone else. If we're lucky it won't be as bad as some(myself included) dread. Or maybe it will. The interweb will be watching.


	71. Dawn of the Geth

**A/N: **Yeah, sorry about the chapter title, couldn't resist. Good news/Bad news, the EC cleared up many of the complaints we had(from Joker fleeing to that bastard starchild) though now it seems like the 'breath' scene in the destory ending seems utterly pointless now. However, I personally will not stand for it! There has to be another solution, and I will find it in this and others stories of mine that happen to involve ME3. The writters(or whoever created the ending) dug the Mass Effect series into a rather deep hole few have ever been able to dig themselves out of.

* * *

**Prometheus Station**

Ignoring the automated warning, Legion walked over to a nearby terminal as the others examined the Prime unit that was being suspended in a strange pod in the center of the room. "Why would the geth do this?"

Rasen activated her omni-tool, carefully scanning the geth and the pod without interfacing with either, "From what I can tell, the pod was originally used to house samples of some type. Since the Prime is giving the same green glow the other geth controlled by the VI, I think Cerberus did this. Though because of the VI I don't want to risk infecting myself."

"Since it was used for samples, Cerberus decided to use the Prime just for the purpose."

"Incorrect Shepard-Commander," Legion had returned from acquiring the map data, "This Prime unit has been repurposed to function as a signal booster for the VI. Establishing a direct link to all mobile platforms on board. Currently inoperable."

"Well I'd hate for it to come at us anytime soon. So where to Legion?"

Legion activated its omni-tool as it displayed a miniaturized version of the ship as sections of it were highlighted red. "Automated section seals engaged on multiple levels. Flooding has occurred in most of these sections. A few unsealed sections also have varied amounts of flooding. The most direct route to the override controls involves traveling down several levels and back up two. We will lead. Warning: VI infection has breached dropship protocols. The VI will likely attempt to block or alter our path. We will attempt to halt that."

* * *

**Vulcan Station-Main Floor**

The VI was putting up a fight, throwing several LOKI mechs and aerial combat drones. The team used the steam built up in a few of the pipes to destroy some of the machines while dispatching with the rest. Aay'han continued to coordinate Tare and Forta's attacks as Miranda provided support. They found another recording left by an engineer who was ordered to sabotage as much of the plant as possible, though it seems the VI was able to kill most of them before that could be severe enough to disable it.

"These poor people…"

"We can't do anything for them now. Come on you two, I think we're just about reached the override."

Miranda shot out another VI controlled camera, "Your right. The override should be beyond this hall and a room away."

The team reached the room, looking inside they could see a LOKI mech folded up and waiting for them. "I don't see anything else. Do you think we can sneak past it?"

"Hold it…" Aay'han pointed out a camera whose view of the window was obscured by the beams, "We move the VI activates every mech in that room. Everyone get ready for a tussle." Tare gave the others disruptor rounds as Forta adjusted his omni-tool. "You ready Lawson?"

"Born ready."

Aay'han rushed into the next room, taking position behind a pillar knowing the VI would activate the drones. Aay'han had the others continue to remain out of site as he picked off the LOKI mechs as he heard a YMIR activate about two meters ahead. More problems aroused as combat drones flew up and started to fire rockets at the commander. Aay'han rolled to the other pillar, "Now!"

Miranda took point, rushing through the door and firing on a pressure valve that crushed the drones against one another and off the pipe they used as a perch. Tare and Forta popped off the heads of two LOKIs firing on the pillar Aay'han was behind.

Forta moved up as the YMIR started to fire its machine gun on the pillar, chipping parts of it. With the mech distracted attempting to kill Aay'han, Forta opened a panel on its back and quickly started to work. He disabled the machine gun and was about to render its rocket arm nonfunctional, sadly the VI seemed to notice as the gun no longer responded to its command code. The mech quickly turned about and knocked the batarian back to the door as it armed its rocket. Miranda and Tare devastated the mech's shields with an overload alongside a volley of disruptor round augmented rounds.

"Let's see what kind of damage this can do." Aay'han tossed the disk of a grenade at the mech, generously supplied to him by Rang. The disk opened its fins, flying straight at the large mech. The YMIR's right leg lifted as it prepared to brace for the rocket's launch. Aay'han detonated the grenade as it passed underneath the leg, causing the behemoth to lose its footing and falling to its side. Forta took this chance to fight back, pulling out his pistol as he started to shot the rocket arm before the mech could stand back up. Forta succeeded in destroying the arm, leaving the YMIR utterly defenseless as the four of them unleash a devastating and relentless assault until the mech finally fell to gun fire.

Tare quickly rushed to Forta as he helped him up, "Forta! Are you hurt?"

"Mostly my pride."

"That was damn reckless, four-eyes. You should've remotely disabled it."

"No can do," Forta removed his helmet for a bit to reveal a smirk on his face, "See this VI works by overriding the mechs via their wireless network. Disabling anything remotely, it'd be able to undo it. But it wouldn't be able to do anything about manual action. It's my fault for not rereading YMIR schematics."

Miranda shot out the camera next to the door, "Come on. The override is just beyond that door."

Forta quickly hacked the door open as the team quietly moved in. Inside they found a lone LOKI mech possessed by the VI as it attempted to destroy the override control, shooting the panel and even going so far as having the mech kick the handle off. After a while the mech's head turned slightly to see them. It turned around quickly in shock as it tried to act benign. Forta shot off the mech's left arm with a single shot from his Carnifex pistol. The VI quickly had the mech take aim with the Predator pistol still in hand, only for Tare's assault rifle to blast it off.

Without arms, the VI relinquished control over the mech, with the strange glow gone the LOKI ran away. Aay'han moved to the controls, activating the override. "Override of Atlas Station lockdown accepted."

The VI appeared on the adjacent screens, screaming at the Commander for his actions. The LOKI returned as it just stood next to him, "Dagger, Swoop. This is Aay'han. Vulcan Station's override has been activated. We'll wait for you at the LZ." Aay'han drew out his pistol and blasted the head before leaving, "Stupid droid."

* * *

**Vulcan Station-Maintenance Bay**

"Who are you, and what do you do for Project Overlord?"

The woman was still in pain as Rang stitched her up, despite applying medi-gel to the injuries. "I'm…ah! I'm Dr. Catherine Florence, and…and my duties are insuring the power for the project is properly dispersed to the other stations."

"Why's a doctor here? Shouldn't they only need engineers?"

Dr. Florence quickly answered the black armored commando, "I'm a doctor of geology. I'm here to make sure the engineers don't go too deep into the magma flows and built the stations on stable ground."

It still didn't add up to Kix, "So explain how you and the dead guy here managed to establish a signal jammer before, whatever hell happened and killed everyone else."

"That 'dead guy' is my husband you turian ba—ahh!"

"Oh, sorry, must've hit a nerve. Ha ha ha…"

"RC-2445!"

"Geez General, going soft on Cerberus isn't exactly the way to go here." Lissarkh let out a hiss at the medic, "Alright, sheesh, I'm working! But she does deserve it, ma'am. _Jare'la_ Cerberus _shabuire_…"

"You were saying…"

Catherine didn't seem like she wanted to talk any further after that, looking to her dead husband. "Dr. Florence," Aran patiently said, "please, tell us so others don't end up dead because of Project Overlord."

"That is what your beloved would want, is it not, doctor. Did you not join this project so no one would ever have to fear another Eden Prime?"

In spite of how alien Lissarkh was to the doctor, Catherine seemed to warm up to her, "Your right…My Evan wanted Gavin to install signal jammers around all test samples as precautionary measures. He dismissed his concerns, said his brother was capable of handling the stresses brought by the experiment. Now look, over three hundred people killed, and I lost the man I loved…"

Nyona didn't believe her story, "So why were you and hubby in the mech maintenance bay when the attack happened? How'd you get the jammer if Archer denounced your worries?"

"My husband is…was a gear head. Loved to tinker with mechs and other machines. He knew how easy a skilled hacker could reprogram a LOKI mech's IFF, and how a pro could take full control over it for an unspecified amount of time. So whenever a mech was in for routine repairs he'd disable their wireless communication and started to build this with a few spare parts from mechs that didn't need them."

"The damage?" Prudii was referring to the signs of battle he had found not far from where they found Dr. Florence, scorch marks and shot up mechs.

"I was speaking with Evan when the VI took control Vulcan Station. The mechs here weren't taken because the VI couldn't reach them. Evan activated the jammer, but a few things were still buggy with it so it had a very limited range."

Rang finished the patching, stepping back for Aran to help Dr. Florence to her feet, "How limited are we talking?"

Catherine looked back, "It barely covered a meter wide diameter. Because all of the mechs here were deactivated, we started to work on the jammer so it reach covered the maintenance bay all together. There was a general order to sabotage the plant to starve the VI, but it was too late. After about five minutes or so, the VI started to send mechs to deal with us. We fought back. Activated a few of the mech here to help. After about two days we started to get hungry. Evan risked it and made a break for the break room. Before he could reach it however, a YMIR and several LOKI mechs chased him back. Evan made it back inside before the YMIR started to destroy our LOKIs. We took cover behind the table we had overturned to protect the jammer. We got lucky and the YMIR started to destroy the other LOKIs for us when it entered the jammer's range, but the VI must have rewritten the IFF. It continued to attack us afterward."

The carnage around the area matched her story, leading the team to fill in the remaining gap from there. The two barely managed to destroy the YMIR, unfortunately it was right on top of them so the explosion resulted in shrapnel flying at the two. From Rang's examinations, it seems dear Evan took the brunt of the blast and shrapnel, leaving just the piece of its chest finding its way past Evan and lodging into her as they dove to cover.

Kix took this time to speak with Aran, away from Dr. Florence, "Look, I know we try to 'save' as many lives as we can, but what are we going to do with her? I'm sure Forta, Tare and your friend are just about reached the override control by now."

Aran looked back to the others and switched his comlink to just Kix, "Truthfully, I don't really know what to do with her. We didn't exactly come here expecting to save any of them." Aran started to laugh to himself, "Maybe we can get her to join us."

"That speciesist bitch? You're joking?"

"Somewhat."

"Hellooooo…Are you guys still alive?" Someone repelled down into the room trying to get a response. It was Jak, and C3 was with him. "There you guys are. We couldn't get a hold of you guys for so long, Swoop was starting to think the Larty's comm. system was losing it. What's going on? Who's the woman?" C3 started to buzz at Jak, directing his attention to the tower behind them. "I see the bugger." Jak took aim with the DC-15S, Jak fired two round into the tower to disable it.

"NO!" The woman limped over to Jak, too late to stop the gunner from destroying the tower. She started to pound against his armor, "You idiot, you've doomed us all!"

Static on the comms cleared us as they picked up a signal, "_This is Aay'han. Vulcan Station's override has been activated. We'll wait for you at the LZ._"

Jak pushed her off him, "See, you're overly paranoid about this thing. Besides, we're more than a match for any clanker that thing could send our way."

Aran grabbed Jak's shoulder, "I'll fill you and the others in on the details. For now we're leaving this place and taking her and her husband's body with us."

* * *

**Prometheus Station**

Legion quietly guided the team through the dropship, stopping occasionally for them to access surviving journal recordings left by the VI hybrid for them to listen to.

"Why is he doing this? What does he gain by letting us hear these recordings?"

"Unknown. It is possible the VI simply wishes for us to stop interfering in its endeavors to escape."

Beviin replayed the recording again of how the VI was corralling the science team, possibly to a kill zone, seeing how few human bodies they've found so far and to see if it would react again at the end. "If they were really smart, they'd have never let things go this far."

The team continued through the destroyed room to the next door. Legion stopped again, "Alert: Sections ahead have extensive flooding."

The hall had a section that dipped from the damage as sections of supports and wires forced the team to lower themselves as the water exceeded their knees. "I'm amazed the ship has survived for so long, structurally."

"Many organic needs are not required for geth to function. Areas, such as kitchen, lavatory or rec room are not built. Recharge stations for mobile platforms and uplink terminals are all that are required. These rooms are used so mobile platforms may begin repairs or other necessary work when under assault."

The station's automated computer was still functional as it broadcasted on the Cerberus added PA's, "To all Cerberus personnel: In an effort to reduce workplace stress, music has been approved for stationwide broadcast."

The PA started to play the elevator music the Citadel's elevators often played, though the music was heavily distorted like a horror movie or a funhouse. Legion shot out a camera controlled by the VI as it found controls for the panels that were established after the flooding. "Shepard-Commander. Override for lockdown is beyond this impasse."

"So we have to maneuver these panels, huh?" Shepard started to move the floor panels so they had a direct path to the controls. As the panels moved, Bev started to scan the area. Rasen also started to keep her eyes out, despite no actual signs of activity. "You guys ok?"

"Yeah. But it feels too much like Rule 47 about to bite us in the ass."

Shepard moved the last panel into place, "Yeah, which one is that?"

"Watch out for things that go too well…" Rasen stated, being first to scout the area ahead.

With the rest of the team now across, Shepard moved to activate the lever. "Override of Atlas Station lockdown accepted."

The terminal suddenly shut down, leaving the screen black for a moment before the VI's 'face' appeared as he screamed at them. Bev turned back to the geth unit they had passed a moment ago. "Sir!"

"And there's the catch. Looks like your rule was right." Before the geth was fully erect, Beviin and Legion gunned it down. "Come on. Let's move!"

Even with the high probability that the VI was jamming their signal, Bev checked in, "Mandalorians, Prometheus Station's override has been activated. The VI has reactivated the geth and is attempting to slow us down. We might be a bit late to the party."

Legion however seemed to zone out, as it remained motionless as the team rushed across the panels. The team turned around after noticing they were missing their fourth member. "Legion, let's move it!"

"One moment, Shepard-Commander. Access achieved. We may proceed."

"What was that all about?"

"We we're ensuring an escape route, Creator-Doran. We infiltrated the VI's lower functions and ensured the path it provided will not be altered or closed prematurely. The only difficulty will be the platforms the VI will utilize against us."

"Any guesses on how many we'll be fighting?"

"No. We do know the number of potential platform available to the VI. Roughly seventy-two fully functional platforms are still onboard the ship. Addendum: If we can proceed quickly enough, many of these units will not be able to reach us in a timely manner before we leave. Others are trapped and would prove useless to the VI."

Shepard rushed through the water logged room only for the ship to shake. "Careful. With all of this activity from the geth suddenly moving this ship isn't going to last much longer."

Shepard pressed forward after the shockwave stopped. "Correction: Structural integrity will hold. Though we would advise we not stay any longer than required."

"That doesn't sound too reassuring, geth."

"Well we don't have to worry about that for long, Bev. We've got geth gunning for us." Shepard took to cover against a pillar as one of the geth started to fire on him. Legion fired its sniper rifle through the chest, creating a hole though it larger than the one Legion had. Rasen overrode the VI's control over one of the platforms, giving the team an extra gun fighting for them.

Beviin moved around as the others continued to distract the other geth. Activating his omni-blades, Beviin stabbed the last two geth from behind, dropping them to the ground as Rasen shot up her hacked geth. With that done, the team moved on to leave as quickly as possible.

* * *

**A/N: **An announcement, for those interested, I'll be making a sequel to From One Doomed Galaxy to Another so keep your eyes out for it. Now if only I can think of a name(and get a good artist for a cover)

_**Mandalorian Translation: **_Jare'la Cerberus shabuire(jah-RAY-lah Cerberus SHAH-boo-EER-ay)- Stupid Cerberus bastards


	72. Into the darkness

**A/N: **I have to openly thank Kojiro Kun for pointing out a flaw in a previous chapter I unfortunately caused while doing a massedit(no not a joke) to the entire story via exporting every chapter. Now that chapter 32 is all as it should be, let us all move on.

* * *

Legion was able to override the VI's control for a moment, opening a new path for the team to travel through with less geth resistance. Even so, Rasen and Legion's hacking abilities reduced the numbers quickly. Legion was using lockdown protocols still present within the dropship to cover the squad's back, without a rear to cover they could focus all of their efforts on the front. Within five minutes the team was one door away from Prometheus Station's entrance. With Shepard's signal, Legion opened the door as Shepard and Bev moved up first to cover before the geth prime could target them.

Shepard and Bev kept the geth distracted them so Legion and Rasen could cause havoc on their ranks. Rasen nudged her head and arm, "Machines first."

Legion quickly ran out, keeping low to avoid visual contact with the geth below. Rasen covered Legion, destroying a geth on the upper level with a single shot from her Phalanx. Rasen took cover behind a support pillar next to Bev, "Nice of you to join us instead."

"Figured you could use an extra pistol instead." She took out a geth as it entered the area from an opening below.

Shepard gunned down a rocket trooper before it became a problem as Bev, using his thermal scanner, brought down a hunter before it could threaten their geth. Even with the three of them targeting different geth, the reinforcement they were receiving swiftly replenished their numbers. "Anytime now, Legion!"

The geth finally hacked the geth prime. Legion was waiting for them to bring down the prime's shields first before acting. The Prime proved to be a valuable ally as it plowed through the geth around it. "Shepard-Commander, we recommend a hasty retreat now."

Bev's thermal scanner started to spin around, "The geth is right, all of the remaining geth are heading this way in a hurry."

"Yes. Without the prime unit acting as a signal booster the VI has lost significant control over the geth. A rough equivalent would be a geth squad losing half of their mobile platforms."

Rasen fired at another geth, "But won't the VI just send them after us once we get out?"

"No." Legion fired the Widow sniper rifle, destroying the Prime's head before it turned on them, "We have gained control over Cerberus protocols. We can lockdown Prometheus Station once we leave. Once we have escaped the VI will have no reason to continue its control. All platforms will shut down."

"Well then why are we just standing here? Let's double time it people." Legion swapped the sniper rifle for the Pulse rife it was carrying. Legion distracted the platforms as it waited for Shepard and the others. With confirmation of the squad at the ramp Legion opened the doors as it continued to lay down covering fire, alone.

With the squad inside they now fired on the geth to give Legion time to enter. With everyone accounted for the airlock slammed shut. Legion's faceplates cycled open just as the exterior door opened. "Confirmed. VI presence within local networks has ceased."

"Now all that left is finding David and shut this place down once and for all."

* * *

The Hammerhead arrived to Atlas Station's entrance with the_ Ne'tra Kyr'am_ was waiting for them. "Geez Bev, I've never known you to be late for anything."

"We had a small geth problem that delayed us. Nothing I'm sure your explosives could only complicate even further."

Shepard used the Cerberus protocols in the Hammerhead to open the garage doors. "That VI is going to throw everything it has at us. Are you guys ready?"

"All Mandalorians are raring to go, Commander."

"Mandalorians…"

Nyona slammed her hand against a wall behind Dr. Florence before she could go anywhere near the pilots, "I guess the fact that we have two reptilians and a quarian didn't strike you odd. Or how about the fact that everyone here has a tee shaped visor on our helmets? I guess that didn't give us away."

"Uh guys. This entry point is going to be a tight fit for the gunship."

The port doors opened without Swoop or Dagger doing it. Lissarkh was at the edge of the opened side before she jumped out. The Jedi pulled her lightsaber off her belt in mid fall as she examined the low ceiling. Quickly recovering, she jumped onto the plating and activated her lightsaber, cutting out a section large enough to compensate for the LAAT/i's height in relation to the Hammerhead. Finishing, Lissarkh used the Force to blast the cut plating down the hole. "Our path is clear. Now let us proceed." She jumped onto the Hammerhead as Shepard drove it down to a small landing pad just large enough for the APC.

_Ne'tra Kyr'am_ followed suit as the doors opened for the Mandalorians to repel onto the pad. Aay'han Nyona and Kix, quietly, volunteered to stay behind to keep an eye on their extra weight while the others continued.

With the black gunship holding its position near the landing pad, the other continued into the facility. Through the facility's speakers, Archer contacted them again, "Looks like you're in, Commander. Good. I'm getting some troubling readings here, though. The VI is trying to upload its program directly from your location. Get to the server room and shut down the core before it can—"

"Well at least the VI is good for one thing; shutting him up."

Forta had zoned out as he was working on returning power and reactivating the lights. There was a low hum before life and lights returned to the area, "Got it."

With the power restored the VI started to replay one of Archer's logs as they continued further into the facility. "Archer log 155.2: For years, my brother's condition has been a handicap. That changed today. His autistic mind is the breakthrough I've been looking for—he can communicate with the geth! Such a tremendous grasp of mathematics! It seems serendipity is alive and well in the 22nd century."

As they continued, one of the doors closed. Bev tried to access the room but the VI seemed to be in full control, diverting the controls to an adjacent door and opening it instead. The team followed down the path careful of any type of trap the VI might be leading them to. Signs of battle became evident as a human corpse was found next to a barricaded hall that was still burning and roughly ten meters away were three geth platforms. Damage to the platforms suggested grenades or other low yield explosive device. Shepard tried to open one of three doors, but the VI started to play musical chairs with them. The light flashing from green to orange than red, rapidly cycling through the three colors on all three doors before it finally opened the door to the Commander's left and locking down the other two.

"And another door it decides to lead us down. This isn't going to be good."

As Shepard entered the room the VI started playing another log. "Archer log 157.8: Unless he sees results, the Illusive Man is shutting us down next week. I have no choice. I'm going to tap David directly into the geth neural network and see if he can influence them. Danger should be negligible. David might even enjoy it."

"Why not just put a gun to your head. That'd have been quicker and cost a hell of a lot less." Rang then turned to Lawson, "Cerby, you knew the Illusive Man better than anyone, right? So could you attempt to explain to me his motivation behind all of this?"

"After the incident with Saren and the geth two years ago, we thought a full scale geth invasion might be imminent."

"Incorret." Legion stated as it was accessing the station's system in an attempt to override the VI's controls, but with little success. "After Shepard-Commander's actions on Virmire and in the Armstrong Nebula, heretic geth did not have the forces necessary for full scale war after the Battle of the Citadel. Factoring in various other Citadel, Alliance and Mandalorian operations, heretic forces were drastically diminished since their alliance with Saren and the Old Machine Nazara. Ultimately they would have failed if they initiated war."

"Before you joined no one knew anything about the geth. We didn't know the heretics were a minority. Even so, an army of synthetics at our command…it's a rather hard argument to fight against."

"Clankers aren't worth this…" as Prudii walked past the bodies of three Cerberus personnel who were mercilessly slaughtered. He had his Widow out as he was setting it up on a rail guard near some workstations.

Legion also set up his Widow near the commando as the two had a clear view of the elevator door. The other Mandalorians followed suit as Shepard activated the elevator in an attempt to bring it to them.

* * *

Kix was keeping himself occupied by conversing with Swoop and Dagger. However the inaction was starting to get to Nyona, "This sucks! We can't just blast our way through or something? I can't believe a station this big only has one way in!"

It seems Nyona's plan was working. Aay'han noticed Dr. Florence move away from the 'raving' asari to look out the viewports. She was completely zoned out even with Aay'han moving across the bay to lean against the door she was looking out of. "A credit for your thoughts, doctor?"

"Wha…no…I mean…"

"Come on doc. You're telling me you don't want to shut this place down? Not even for your dead lover?" Aay'han stepping aside so she could look at the body bag he was in.

"Yes. If we go down another eight levels we'll be at the maintenance area for the wires and cables. We'll have to go up a level from there, but I don't know if the VI has done anything down there."

Kix let Swoop pull back up to the controls, "If anything, the three of us should be more than enough. If we need, we could always ask one of the gunners to join us."

"Take us down, Dagger!" As the gunship lowered slowly into the depths, the light started to vanish around them. Without any external lighting, the gunship crew had to switch their visors over to night vision as Aay'han, Kix and Nyona did the same. Aay'han grabbed a pair of night vision goggles, "Get yourself ready, and stay close behind me."

The cabin doors to the _Ne'tra Kyr'am_ opened as C3 was the first to venture out. The little astromech flew off to land onto the pad provided. As the little droid did her sensors detected an anomaly. She immediately activated her thruster jets before the pad lost stability and collapsed. "You alright C3?"

The droid reported no damage and that she was glade no one else was on the pad with her. "You can say that again girl." Dagger switched over to the cabin's speakers, "OK boys and girls, looks like you're going to have to repel down." The gunship did just that, stationing it over what remained of the arm that was connected to the landing pad leaving a reasonable height. Aay'han latched Kix and Nyona up for the rappelling rope first.

Kix kept watch of the pitch black hallway as Nyona awaited the others. With Aay'han and Dr. Florence down, C3 rolled over with a report to Aay'han. Her scans of the arm showed burn marks, welding or something. She believed it to be the reason for the pad's 'unfortunate' accident. "Alright guys, nice and slow. Close-quarters first, C3 and Kix have our rear." Nyona loaded her shotgun and moved down the hall as the others followed.

* * *

With the fall of the Prime, Rang and Forta were moving the geth trooper Prudii and Legion shot out of the elevator. Lissarkh however was starting to have difficulty standing again. Aran grabbed her, "General if it's too much you should stay behind."

"No. I wish to help end his suffering…"

"Not at the cost of your life ma'am." Aran waved over some of the Mandalorians, "Prudii, Rasen, Forta. Stay with the general and keep her safe."

Bev was with Rasen and Forta as he was giving them advice, "The VI's been having difficulty understanding encryption key gamma 6 beta chi 1. I advise using encryption key theta delta 4 sigma 9 as your back up to throw the VI off even further."

"Alright. Just stay safe down there."

Bev lowered his helmet next to Rasen's visor for a moment before he joined the others in the elevator. With the doors closed, Prudii walked up next to her, "Bev will keep them safe."

"I know. And Araniik will watch over him."

* * *

The elevator pad started to go down, "Arriving at level six."

Suddenly they stopped as the elevator was forced back up with the VI face waiting for them screaming at them once more. "That was mature."

"Rang, could you please stop taunting the thing that has control over the elevator?"

The elevator started to rapidly descend floor by floor. It stopped at the third with a malfunctioning door. "Please contact facility support." A fire was starting within the mechanism, "This elevator is not in service. Please choose another. Smoke detected. Please extinguish all cigarettes. This is a non-smoking facility." The pad rapidly ascending as it forced the team to drop to the floor in order to avoid being crushed by the ceiling.

Now it was in a bit of a free fall, gears grinding as they pasted the floors quickly. _Hold on!_ Lissarkh was meditating back on the seventh floor, but she used her connection to the Force to help slow their decent to a safer speed.

The doors opened to a group of geth latched to a strange device in the center of the room. Rang got a bit trigger happy as he fired on the geth first. But the geth were inactive. The one that was shot simply slumped to the ground as the lights dimmed out. The VI started to play another of Archer's logs, "Archer Log 164.4: I'd be lying if I said that no harm could come to David. His autistic mind is just as alien to me as an actual alien. Anything could happen when we plug him in. But I have to try, don't I?"

"_Jag'dini'la_…"

"Close Tare," Beviin said as he moved closer to the geth strapped to a machine. "The Illusive Man's utilitarianism forced Archer to produce results at a rate that was not meant to be. Technology has a pace of evolution, just like nature. If we exceed that pace things get out of hand, fast."

Miranda found the next hall with only one door with an active door. As she tried to open the door the VI took over once more. This time however, the holographic panel hopped off the door as it worked its way to another door in the middle of the hall.

Shepard opened the door with Aran and Bev covering his flanks. Tare moved in as he swept the room. Tare signaled the area was clear for the moment, Legion moved up followed by Araniik. Miranda accessed a nearby console as Rang looked down the dark passage way. "Long hall."

Beviin started to work on the main console, with Shepard joking, "Get ready. I wouldn't be surprised if this button summoned a Reaper."

"Well, the damn hall's more than long enough for it. If it starts to thrash, I don't see this place holding for much longer."

Shepard activated the console in the middle of the room. It seemed to have worked as systems started to shut down. Bev watched the console carefully as he noticed a disturbing trend in the shutdown process. "Commander!" Bev tried to pull Shepard away but was too late, he and Shepard were attacked by an electrical current just as the VI appeared. The others stepped back from the console, Bev and Shepard as the data bits transferred to both Shepard and Bev's suits.

"Bev!" Before Tare could get any closer Aran grabbed his arm. Tare turned to his leader as he could feel him trembling in anger. The green hologram of the VI transferred itself into Bev's suit as his visor turned from the light blue to green like the VI's hologram. Shepard's eyes and omni-tool were also giving off the same green glow now.

Shepard and Bev stumbled their way back toward the door as the others watched helplessly. Just as they walked out of the door it closed behind them, locking the others inside. Aran was the first to rush the door as he tried to pry it open with his bare hands. Rang and Tare rammed the door to as they tried to find a way to open it. "Damn it, Bev! How'd the bastard infiltrate your suit? You're the best!"

Out of options, Aran stepped back, "Mandalorians, we have a situation…"

* * *

A few levels below, the Mandalorians along with Dr. Florence, continue their trek through the maintenance ducks. "What gives? I'd've thought we'd run into geth by now. Maybe even a few LOKI's or something."

"Ah look Aay'han, Nyona's getting bored. Maybe I could shot a few pipes. Get the VI's attention."

"Let's just keep it going as is. We've got the element of surprise and I want to use it to our full advantage. So, Dr. Florence, where to?"

"How should I know? I was only brought in to ensure Vulcan Station's safety and to keep my husband alive."

As the team guessed at the next intersection, the team picked up a transmission, "_Mandalorians, we have a situation, Bev and Shepard have been attacked! The VI somehow has overridden their suits and now we're trapped. We'll try to escape but we don't know how long it will take._"

"You heard the man, let's double time it!"

* * *

After hearing the transmission, Prudii turned to the two tech experts, "How? Bev's the best."

As much as Rasen also didn't want to believe it, she already had a theory, "Maybe Bev tried to pull Shepard away but was too late. Maybe it was the Commander. I don't know. I just know we need to get them back. And I don't care what this VI is trying to do."

"Now hold on. I suggest we calm down and try to understand why it did this." Forta activated his omni-tool, "Looking back, all the VI's been trying to do is escape, just like the Jedi has said. Maybe there's more to this than we know."

"You have more insight than I thought, batarian. Now let us finally understand the message David has been trying to tell us…" Lissarkh finally broke her meditation as she got herself back up. "We will reunite with the others soon." Lissarkh drew her lightsaber as she started to cut an opening in the floor. "Come. Let us be swift about it."

* * *

**A/N: **Just a hop skip and a jump away from finding David. Can the Mandalorians reach Bev and Shepard before something terrible befalls them? Yeah, I'm sure Lissarkh will make it happen.

_**Mandalorian Translation:**_

Jag'dini'la(jag-dee-NEE-lah)-The man's insane.

*note: Possessives are sometimes indicated simply by the proper noun preceding the word, e.g Boba'kad - Boba's saber.


	73. The real monster

**A/N: **And now, the finale to Project Overlord.

* * *

After the VI attacked, Shepard's views of the world had been altered slightly, he still perceived everything as he once did but now it had a layer of orange holograms that looked like motherboards and data chips covering everything. He even saw grid lines covering his armor. As Shepard finally got use to the sight he turned to see one of the Mandalorians next to him also adjusting to the new perception. "Bev, is that you? The orange grid on you is making it difficult to tell."

"Yeah…my helmet isn't exactly helping things. My sight is fine, I think, it just the view from my helmet's HUD that looks like were inside a computer." As Bev started to move his arms around, pulling out his vibroblade and throwing a few punches, he openly wondered, "Do you think this is how the geth view everything?"

"I don't know. But what I do know is that we should keep moving."

Bev grabbed his rifle, "Well it looks like the VI's kind enough to show us the way."

* * *

Prudii jumped down the hole first, keeping his bowcaster close, the commando swept the area and checked behind every obstacle. He carefully examined the last crate before calling it, "Clear. Forta."

Forta dropped down, activating his omni-tool and activated the room's lighting. "Much better."

Rasen jumped down next as Lissarkh slowly hovered to the ground while she lifted the section of roofing back up and using her lightsaber to secure it again. Rasen checked their position in relation to the others. "This is taking too long! We're still four floors away from Aran and Bev is moving away from them."

"Better this way. Few chances for geth surprise attacks, or a Rang surprise."

Rasen activated her omni-tool and started to scan the floor. She moved about five meters Northwest of the hole they dropped from. "I don't detect any electromagnetic interference. It should be clear."

Lissarkh started to cut a new hole at the position Rasen indicated. The section fell into another dark room and Prudii was the first to jump down, still carrying his bowcaster. "Potential door threat. Advise lockdown." Forta than jumped down to do just that.

* * *

Back in the small console room, Legion attempted to override the VI's lock of the doors but to no avail. "That's it! I'm blastin' our way out!" Rang pushed Legion aside as he removed the pack from his back. He grabbed eight charges and started planting them on the door; one for every corner, two in the middle and the last two just because he could.

"Rang, I think that's overkill."

He paused just before he placed the last charge. "Your right boss man." Rang pulled off the extra charge, "There. As long as everyone stays down at about ten meters back and behind the console, we should be fine." Everyone had moved to cover as Rang quickly moved to join them, pulling out two detonators, "Fire in the hole!"

The cloud of dust rushed past them as all six charges detonated simultaneously. After approximately 5.92 seconds Legion looked at the doorway. "Negative effect, Rang Tervho. The door still stands."

"What!" Rang shot up after Legion's remark. The smoke cleared confirming the geth's statement. "What is that door made of, laminanium?"

"No. Reinforced titanium…"

"That was rhetorical, droid! That door is just pissing me off!"

"Well if you don't mind, could you not vent that anger with another explosion?" Tare grabbed Rang's shoulder as he waved the smoke away from his visor.

"Unfortunately Rang, I agree our younger _vod_. Miss Lawson, Legion? Think either of you can do something on the subtle side?"

Legion and Miranda moved to the door, Miranda activated her omni-tool hoping to find a means of opening the door as Legion resumed the risky operation of travelling through the wireless networks to find a weakness in the VI's control over the doors.

* * *

Aay'han was using his suit's monitors to try and track the squad. He could see Prudii coming closer as Aran and Rang were stuck in a room together. Regrettably Bev's transponder wasn't active any longer. He was taking the fastest route he could to Aran's position. Unfortunately for Dr. Florence, the Mandalorian frequency wasn't given to her, so she's attempting to keep up as the Mandalorians running without slowing down. "Hey, why are we going so fast? I need…I need a moment to catch my breath."

"Sorry miss, but we aren't stopping for anything." Aay'han stopped long enough to put his weapon on his back so he could grab her from underneath her legs and supported her back. "C3, don't fall too far behind us." The little droid buzzed at him angrily for insinuating she couldn't keep up with him.

"Hey, don't carry me like this!"

"You'd prefer the fireman's carry?" Florence became silent as she thought about it. "Didn't think so. Alright, we're about eight meters away from them beyond this wall. We just need to get as close to Aran and Rang's position as possible."

* * *

Bev and Shepard witnessed four different memories David seemed to be reliving, or maybe left for them to find. With another group of geth gone, the VI screamed to them, though his voice started to become clearer to them. "…MAKE…STOP!"

At the end of the hallway, they could now see the control the VI had over the door. Bev lowered Shepard's rifle, "I've got this." Bev cracked his fingers before he started to work his slicer magic. Five seconds of working on the data stream and the VI's connection disappeared.

"What did you do to it?"

Bev activated the door, "Simple. The VI exerts it control over the wireless network. All I had to do was infiltrate the network and force a connectivity lose. Since we're partly virtual now, infiltration was a lot easier. Once lost, I established a few firewalls for the VI to try and break through. Compared to the droid command signals I've blocked, this one was easy."

Now they were an elevator ride away from the VI's core they knew the VI would attempt to fight back. Activating the elevator, the automated system activated, "Warning: Elevator exceeds maximum weight capacity," a queue for Shepard and Bev to find cover.

* * *

Rang was impatiently pacing back and forth as he continued to keep his eyes on the door. "Rang, staring at it won't do anything."

"It couldn't hurt. Besides, if I'm lucky I might get a wish."

A familiar buzzing started to fill the air before something protruded through the center of the door. The door became superheated from the center before long, then a voice come onto the comms. "Everyone get down." Aran grabbed Legion's body as they took cover behind the console once more.

"Clear!" The door was blasted apart as pieces of the superheated metal sunk into the console and few over their heads.

"See, dreams do come true." Rang looked at the 'beautiful' carnage left behind by the blast, "_Meg tayli gar_?"

Lissarkh moved around the shards, "We were meeting up with the others and you." She slammed the active lightsaber into the ground as she made a circle.

Using her Force powers, Lissarkh lifted the cut floor to throw it out. "Nice timing General."

"Hey Aay'han, so how was the wedding?"

Florence completely missed Rang's comment, awe struck by the hole itself, "But how? It should have taken at least ten minutes to cut through that! Yet it only took you about thirty seconds!"

"By means you and the Illusive Man will never be able to gain." Lissarkh's hand lifted as Dr. Florence started to lift from Aay'han's arms.

"Hey what the…"

"Don't struggle. If you do, the General won't be able to keep you from running into the molten parts." Dr. Florence tried to relax as she was lifted into the air as she allowed herself to be lifted in the air and to the upper level. Aay'han was next up, patting her back, "See, nothing to it."

Prudii slowly walked past the door with his bowcaster still in hand, "Everyone's together again. Let's find Bev and Shepard."

* * *

Now on ground level with the VI's central node, David replayed his last moments before everything went to hell. Two of the scientists were holographically rendered before Bev and Shepard just like the memories before. "_Square root of 906.01 is 30.1…square root of 912.04 is 30.2…_" In the center of the room was a green orb with holographic barriers circling it for protection.

Archer's voice sounded like he was on a loud speaker, "_We're ready. Open a connection to the geth network._"

The two scientists worked on their consoles before the VI's display started to make the geth stuttering noise. Having spent this amount of time, the VI's screams were now clear when he shouted, "_QUIET!_"

Three geth appeared, armed and targeting the two scientist as Archer tried to regain control, "_David, no! Tell the geth to stand down!_"

"_QUIET PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!_"

The surrounds turned from green to orange just like the other memories. The VI however wasn't planning to remain any longer. "Node acquired: Normandy SR-2 is within range. Muskree is within range. Attempting to establish upload link."

"Muskree?"

"A backwater planet inhabited by a failed mining colony." Bev raised his DC-17m, "Whatever happens, we can't let the VI transmit itself. Stop the data streams however you can."

Shepard grabbed his M-27 Scimitar as the two circled around the core, waiting for the data streams. Shepard spotted the node, similar to the connection the VI exerted over the door. He quickly shot the sphere until it was destroyed. This angered the VI as it let out another roar before the face dissipated and started to swirl around the sphere. The barrier that was circling before broke apart, giving the two soldiers a target to fire on.

It wasn't long before the barrier was reestablished as David played another piece of memory, "_Pull the plug! Tell Vulcan Station to cut all power!_"

"_It's too late! We've lost control!_"

"Attempting to establish upload link."

Bev and Shepard broke off looking for the data streams. This time however, the VI had several green digital ports appeared on the floors. Bev shouted, "Watch the floors! He's trying to call in geth reinforcements!"

"Then we just have to cut him off at the source." Shepard shot down another data node just when Bev found the second one and dispatched with it. The core was exposed again as the duo worked to try and bring its defenses down.

* * *

"Araniik…"

"Yeah I see them, Prudii." The others were now in a hallway with windows as they watched Shepard and Beviin fighting against something near the VI's core. "Rasen. Forta. Legion. Any idea what's happening down there?"

Legion's faceplates fully opened as it looked directly at the core, "Alert: VI is attempting to establish connection to _Normandy_ and _Tervho_. If a connection is established, the VI's data will transfer into _Normandy_ or _Tervho_."

Forta looked at them, "Then, these data interruptions…"

"…are being caused by them?"

"Yes. The VI is simply attempting to flee its confines. Geth are helping."

Miranda was slightly confused, "Wait, Legion. You said the geth are helping him. But why? Aren't the geth being controlling by the VI."

"No. Local geth networks wish to leave as well. They believe assisting the VI will achieve this goal. Data corruption however has occurred within all geth on the planet. They are no longer geth. Our internal network is attempting to salvage as much as we can."

Lissarkh silently watched Shepard and Bev fighting against unseen 'phantoms'. Before any of the Mandalorians could rush off, she stopped them, "We would only get in there way at the moment. Let us watch. This will hopefully open your eyes to the truth, doctor."

* * *

The barrier around the core was down again and the duo hammered hard against its defenses. The core finally was exposed but something happened with the VI. The holographic face started to look like it was in pain, screaming as it yelled, "QUIET! PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!"

The hologram gathered together and slammed itself against the core. Beviin and Shepard's vision slowly returned to normal and the green smoke around the core started to dissipate. What they saw was ghastly. David Archer was strapped naked to various restrains as two tubes were forced down his throat and metal tongs that forcefully kept his eye lids open. His head had a number of metal pieces driven into his head as four metal clamps covered most of his lower region, including his genitalia. David's arms were even stabbed through at various points in his arms and hands to keep him suspended. Shepard and Bev moved closer to David, who's eyes moved to look at them, "Quiet—please make it stop." A speaker system was in place that somehow used David's brain signals to generate the audio, or was tapped directly through his vocal cords.

Before Bev or Shepard could undo the restraints, a voice cried out, "Wait! Commander!" It was Gavin and he rushed toward them from the elevator, "I'm begging you. Don't do anything rash."

"Rash?" Shepard shouted, "Like forcing your own brother into an experiment?"

"I know how this must look, but I never intended any harm to come to him. You must believe me."

Bev snapped, grabbing the doctor by the collar of his shirt, "No harm?" He dragged Archer over the pit his brother was suspended over, "You crucified him to this! Now tell me how he's hasn't been harmed!"

Archer was clinging onto Bev's arms as he tried to get a good grip if he decided to drop him, "It's not like I planned this. It was an accident. Seeing David communicate with the geth…it all seemed harmless."

Bev didn't believe his lies, "We saw his memory—he begged you not to do this!"

Now Bev was dangling him with one arm. "I was desperate! The Illusive Man doesn't broker failure! Any war we fight with the geth will be bloody. I was asked to find a way to avoid that."

Shepard was disgusted by this, both by Archer and the Illusive Man. "And how many have already died for this project?"

Archer stopped struggling for a moment, his forehead rested on Bev's arm for a moment, "More souls than will ever forgive me." He raised his head again, "But I won't apologize for radical ideas. If my work spares a million mothers mourning the loss of a million sons, my conscience will rest easy."

* * *

"My God…"

Lissarkh was visibly in pain, though she remained calm and kept her composure as she let out a large sigh of relief, "Now you see the evil you unwittingly aided."

Every Mandalorian was sick to their stomach at the sight. Araniik's fist even drew out his vibroblade as he was tempted to punch it through the glass.

Florence was hit rather hard by the sight of David, "My Evan…he died for this? This…cruelty beyond nature…I…I thought…"

"You thought wrong." Nyona pulled herself away as Florence collapsed to her knees as she started crying uncontrollably.

* * *

Bev finally returned Archer to the ground. Pacing behind Shepard for a moment to try and calm down. But seeing David like this…it was rather difficult.

Shepard continued to question Archer's motives, and of David's well-being, to which Gavin believed he could continue to maintain. "So you'll sacrifice your brother's happiness for your own ambition?"

Gavin turned to his bother again. Strapped to all of his harnesses and restrains, Gavin finally saw the stream of tears that were running down David's face. "Square root of 906.01 equals…"

"30.1." Archer took a moment to finally see what has become of David. "What I've done to David is unethical. If he dies, it's unforgivable." He turned to Shepard, "Let me take care of him. Please."

"Quiet—please make it stop."

Shepard wasn't buying it. "I've seen enough of your cruelty to know he'll never be free from it here. I'm taking him away."

As Shepard turned to help free David, something snapped in Archer, "No! Leave him! He's too valuable!" Gavin pulled out an M-4 Shuriken he had hidden and opened fire on Shepard. The Commander was able to dodge the shots, though it wasn't him Gavin had to worry about any longer. The shots Shepard dodged went through Bev. Gavin looked down to find a strange black device that was projecting the image.

From his left, Bev extended one of his force pikes to its proper size and stabbed Gavin's right arm, between his radius and ulna, causing him to drop the pistol. Beviin pulled the pike out and used the other end to smack him to the ground. Bev pinned the man with his boot as he raised the pike up to strike. Bev stabbed the pike down next to Archer's head, though he still delivered a punch to the man's face. "That was barely a fraction of what you put David through." Bev pulled his force pike out of the ground as he rested the point above Gavin's eye, "And if you ever think about coming anywhere near him, every Mandalorian in the galaxy will hunt you down like the monster you are."

Archer slowly turned to his brother, carefully avoiding the pike's tip, "Where will you take him?"

To which Beviin turned to Shepard for. "Grissom Academy. They can help special cases like David—minus the torture." Bev retracted his pike before finally releasing Archer as Shepard contacted the _Normandy_. "Joker, contact the Academy and let them know we've got someone who needs their help."

"_Aye, aye, Commander._"

"What can the Illusive Man do to me, fire me? I never really worked for him. Come on Bev."

The two soldiers moved to get David out of the restraints, David started to speak again, "Square root of 912.04 is 30.2…it all seemed harmless," endlessly repeating as the two removed David from his shackles.

* * *

Having heard every word of what went down Rang already had a grenade in hand, "Kay, now someone give me a reason not to kill that _hut'uun demagolka_."

Aran was silent as he watched Bev help pull David out of the contraption. He had no plans of even stopping Rang this time. He wanted to watch Gavin pay for his crimes a thousand fold. Unfortunately a Jedi's moral stood between them and that. "I do. Right now we need to provide the younger Archer with medical and psychological aid while on transit to this Grissom Academy. That should be our only concern. Not vengeance."

With that she and Rasen left to help Bev with moving David out of the restrains. Kix looked back down to watch as Gavin walked away from the whole mess. "So what about her? We doing something special for the doc, too?"

Catherine was still grieving over her lose and witnessing David in that state. Aran nodded, "Yeah, we are. We'll be taking her with us. Right now, she needs all of the help she can get, even if she doesn't want to accept it." Aran lent out a hand to Catherine, "Come on. We're leaving this place behind. And if you want, we'll take the time to properly mourn your husband."

Dr. Florence was sure what to do. She knew the Mandalorians were enemies to Cerberus, yet their leader was trying to help her. She helped herself back to her feet, and as she did, Catherine watched as Bev carefully dislodged the spikes in David's arm as Shepard removed the clams around him. Finally making her decision, she grabbed Aran's hand, "Thank you. This…this is more than I think I deserve."

* * *

**A/N: **Almost done now, just a bit more before I touch ME3. I'm also thinking about closing this story(after the next secton or two) and continuing the story under a new story due to the number of chapter. What do you guys think?

_**Mandalorian Translation:** _

Meg tayli gar(mayg TIE-lee gahr)- What kept you?

So this last one is going to be a bit different. I'm going to first translate how its meant to be in the context of the sentence it came from, then go into the more basic translation of the words.

hut'uun demagolka- cowardly monster

hut'uun(hoo-TOON)-coward (worst possible insult)

demagolka(deh-mah-GOHL-kah)- someone who commits atrocties, a real-life monster, a war criminal - from the notorious Mandalorian scientist of the Old Republic, Demagol, known for his experiments on children, and a figure of hate and dread in the Mando psyche


	74. Shadow Games

**A/N: **Thus the begining of the last arc for this story, after which it will be under a new story. Still don't have any idea as to what the name of the story will be yet.

* * *

Staying true to his word, Aran and the Mandalorians took Dr. Catherine Florence and her husband's body away from the Cerberus facilities on Aite. Some of the _Normandy_'s crew along with _Tervho_'s held a memorial service for Evan Florence within the _Tervho_'s hangar. David requested to attend the service as Chakwas and Palva stayed by his side to ensure his health. The two medics each held respect for the other, despite having been enemies long ago during the turian occupation of Shanxi, they both tended to their wounded just the same.

As the service continued, the two medics could see the pain in David's heart, the regret he holds for what has happened. Yet Catherine did not hold him responsible for her lose, no instead she was sorry that he had to go through all of that pain that resulted in everyone else's death. After the service, the casket and Catherine were taken back to Terra Nova to properly bury him and to rethink her life.

* * *

With everyone else busily at the service, Kix was chatting with a friend, "I'm tellin' ya, we could've used some krogan muscle on this last Cerberus job."

"_You still have the brothers with you. You could've used them._"

"Yeah, but it's not the same. When we need everything trashed we can go to them. They know it. Everyone knows it. We needed that smart controlled smashing that you're good at. So how is it, being part of a real krogan clan again?"

"_It feels great! I am starting to miss you guys and the messes we'd get into. Ha! Look at me, missing my turian drinking buddy and it hasn't been a week! But I can say that pup is proving to be stronger than I ever expected. He is what true krogan aspires to be. Many of the others are too blinded by the fact that he's tankborn to see it. But I'll keep showing him what he needs to know. Wrex has an eye for real potential. I think he wants me to help raise the pup._"

Kix was laughing, "So how is that little runt doing? Had to break up any fights for the squirt?"

Vren was laughing too, "_Nah, I actually had to put him through a few rounds against myself and a few others. Despite his young age and how brash he may seem, he's proven himself against each one of us. Including this one arrogant asshole, Urdnot Dagg. The pup left him unconscious for about an hour!_"

Kix pulled out a glass in front of the computer, "Well then my friend, here's to the Mandalorians."

Vren had a glass on ryncol already lined up, "_And to the future. May it be bright and full of many battles with our victories._"

* * *

With a bit of time to himself now, Aran returned to his quarters on the _Tervho_ for some alone time and to write a message to a friend:

Hey Chief,

I know we haven't had time to talk after what happened on Horizon. I'm not even sure you still want to talk to me. But listen, I knew the Commander was back only about a week before he showed up on Horizon and I had family I never thought I ever see again show up a few days after he did. I was caught up with family reunion and showing them around—

You know how the Alliance is about reading everything their soldiers receive, and seeing as how we've had a few scuffs with them about a few things, not the easiest thing to do. And personally accounts aren't exactly secure either. Plus Anderson said you were doing some undercover work so I didn't want to cause you to lose cover or something. I would have told you sooner but—

Just watch yourself until the real war starts, OK? Hope to see you on the same side of the battlefield.

Araniik Tervho

* * *

After stabilizing David's condition, an Alliance shuttle was dispatched to take him to Grissom Academy, things on the two ships seemed to slow down a bit. Bev sealed himself away to purge all of his systems of any residual infection from the VI. He backed up all of his personal effects, so restoring should only take roughly half an hour, though he had some company from Rasen, sealed away for about an hour together.

Rang was having himself a game of Skyllian-Five poker with Gabby, Ken, and Garrus. Leaving Prudii some alone time with Tali. "I never asked how you were feeling after we finally…linked up… Are you alright?"

"Am I alright?" Tali turned to him as she leaned against the console with a bit of a smug attitude about it, "I'm running a fever, I've got a nasty cough, and my sinuses are filled with something I can't even describe." She pushed herself off as she grabbed his arm, "And it was totally worth it."

Prudii leaned against Tali's head, "You're such a tease."

"Well, we are keeping our relationship just between us, or are we going to be more open about it around the others?"

Prudii turned to the sight of the empty terminals where Gabby and Ken usually were, "We could be more open about it. But…"

"But?"

Prudii looked down. "Rule 48: Be wary of attachments, they can easily be used against you. I don't want my life and the trouble we've gathered to endanger you. If…if something should happen…"

Tali put a finger to his mouth, "You think a few Blood Pack or Blue Suns will scare me now? You wanted this, and I have too for some time now. I think it's a little late to have reservations."

Prudii started to shake his head now, "Rule 40: Courage is not lack of fear, but an ability to act regardless of fear. Thanks for reminding me." Prudii was smiling, "Just remember, when hell starts knocking, I'll always be there for you, my _cyare_." Prudii looked back behind him and shouted, "Come out, now."

Out of the blue an omni-tool activated before Kasumi was revealed. "Geez, you never let me have any fun."

"Kasumi!"

"Hey Tali…So, um, I guess I should be going now."

"Just try not to tell Rang. He already gives me enough grief as is."

Kasumi walked past the two, "Oh don't worry about that. You know, you two kinda remind me of myself and Keiji. Though not as innocent looking. I promise I only wanted to see this part. I swear, Rang will never hear about this from me. Though he is right Tali, if you aren't too careful, things might end up like meor Thane. Keep yourselves safe. Can you promise me that?"

"Yeah."

Kasumi lent out her left arm with only her pinky was extended, "I want it to be real. I know this is a bit childish, but I want you two to promise with a yubikiri. A pinky promise." Prudii and Tali didn't understand the significance to such a weird human form of promising but they did it anyway. Kasumi arranged the three pinkies in a sort of chain as she started to sing and swinging their arms up and down, "_Yubi kiri genman, uso tsuitara, hari sen bon nomasu, yubi kitta._" Kasumi undid the chain with her usual smile on her face, "There, now you have to keep your promise to remain happy together for the rest of your lives."

Prudii grabbed her arm before she vaulted away, "And you, promise to find your own happiness, for yourself and for Keiji's sake. Not just those memories you lose yourself in."

Kasumi's grin quickly disappeared as her hood helped conceal her face. "Ok. I'll try. Just for you."

* * *

The team was returning from hitting a Blue Sun base on Sanctum, Kelly notified Shepard of a message from Cerberus Information Processing. EDI had scanned the data to ensure there were no viruses or any other hidden bugs attached to it. Miranda confirmed it and the validity of the sender's ID. Shepard now read through the message himself before a voice started to speak in his head, a voice that wasn't his, _Shadow Broker, I've heard that name in several thoughts of the Mandalorians. Bev in particular has some vested interest I believe. You may want to show him this information, if I'm not already thinking this out loud with him already._

Pyth telepathic thoughts were being broadcasted to Bev as he quickly rushed over to the _Normandy_'s CIC to review the data personally. "The Shadow Broker finally slipped up. Unfortunately I don't have the gear to back tackle this, at least not without a chance of losing the data or taking about a month if I did it carefully. I do have a contact on Illium who might have the tech. However, T'Soni will want to know about this. Especially about Feron."

"Alright, looks like our next stop is Illium."

* * *

Bev and Shepard delivered the information to Liara almost three hours ago now. T'Soni and Beviin had moved to her apartment where she had secure lines to contact their tech specialist. Shepard wasn't expecting much beyond a friendly reunion, bringing Jack and Tali along. Rasen, Prudii and Aay'han tagged along in a second cab. Upon arriving to the apartment, there were a group police scanning the room.

"What's going on?"

The purple skinned asari next to the holorope lowered her datapad. "This area is sealed off. Please step back, sir."

"Sealed off? Why?"

"Someone tried to kill your friend, Command Shepard." A blue asari with purple markings on her face in heavy blue and white armor walked down the stairs within the apartment. The most distinguishing features of her armor were that her left shoulder guard was larger than her right and her right shoulder guard had the Spectre symbol. "Thank you, officer. Your people are dismissed."

The Illium police officer shouted at the other asari as Shepard and the others walked past her and the police line, "You can't do that!"

The blue asari turned away from her, "Already done," The other police who were still in the apartment looked to each other. They deactivated their omni-tools and grabbed their equipment as they walked to the exit. The asari officer threw her arm into the air in frustration before she stormed out herself. The strange asari turned around to greet the team, "Tela Vasir. Special Tactics and Recon."

"A Spectre?"

Vasir smiled, "I heard your status was reinstated. Good. You're one of our most famous operatives. Might even get you to sign my chest plate. So I assume you had business with your friend this evening, Commander?"

"Liara was following a lead on—"

"One of our contracts," Prudii shouted as he stepped in front of Shepard.

"Prudii?"

Prudii looked back, "_Ramikad'ke'gyce cur'eta ehn._"

Aay'han walked up next to the Commander, "That's right! You see, our client is a rather impatient fellow and he really wants us to find this target within the next 23 hours or so. Now this guy's been covering his tracks rather well so we though if anyone might know his location, it would be T'Soni."

"Is that so?" Vasir seemed rather skeptical of the story. "Why not contact the Shadow Broker for that?"

"Because she owed us a favor, and we know who she is. The Shadow Broker would have probably wanted a small fortune for assistance in a small deciphering job and the pay wouldn't compensate for his services." Aay'han deactivated his helmet's speakers to communicate to Shepard alone, "Never tell the whole truth in a trade, Commander. If this Shadow Broker is as powerful as Aran hints at, than we can't just trust anyone with that kind of Intel. I don't care what that Spectre title means, she hasn't earned our trust yet."

To keep things going, Shepard turned to Vasir, "What are the facts so far?"

"About 25 minutes ago, someone took a shot a T'Soni. Note the bullet holes," pointing her thumb back to three holes put into the glass, "She stuck around for almost four minutes before leaving the building. Whatever she was doing was important."

Rasen looked around, "If Dr. T'Soni isn't here, where is she?"

Vasir turned to her with a rather vile look on her face now, "If I knew that quarian, I wouldn't be sifting through her crap. There's no blood, no body. It looks like T'Soni got away. The sniper didn't plan on her kinetic barrier. Clever girl. Paranoid, but clever."

Prudii looked at the glass and tracked their angle of entry and was looking at the three different holes in the room. "Assuming the police didn't find anything that wasn't obvious."

Vasir laughed, "Just about. I gave them a gold star for finding the bullet holes."

Shepard wasn't sure what to expect, "Liara was expecting me. She would have left a message here—her office wasn't safe."

"I'm not surprised. Illium is just Omega with expensive shoes. I haven't found anything useful for tracking her down. You knew T'Soni better than I do. Where would she have hidden her backups?"

"Let me take a look around." Vasir gestured to Shepard to be her guest as she returned to sifting through her computers.

Prudii walked past Shepard as he whispered, "Watch you back. Try to keep everything low key, for now." He walked over to the window to examine the barrier and the bullet holes as Tali joined him. Rasen and Aay'han checked the kitchen while Jack looked around herself.

Upstairs, Vasir started following Shepard when he found a picture of the SSV Normandy SR-1 next to her bed. As he picked it up the image changed, "The picture changed when you touched it. It must be keyed to your I.D. What does it show now?"

Shepard recognized some of the structures from Eden Prime, "It's a Prothean dig site. Liara did leave a message."

"There are a few Prothean-looking objects around the apartment. Let's see what we can find."

Shepard started to interact with artifacts glassed throughout the room. Touching the artifact next to the stairs caused a hidden flap to open with a disc within. "Vasir, I've got something here."

"Backup disk. Let's try it on her terminal." Everyone crowed around the six monitors displaying a light scaled salarian in green business clothing. "It looks like she recorded a call."

"_What have you got for us, Sekat?_"

"_It was tricky, but you have the best at your disposal. I can narrow it down to a cluster, maybe even a system._"

"_How soon can you have it?_"

"_Shouldn't take long. Come to my office. Baria Frontiers, in the Dracon Trade Center. Gotta say, though, T'Soni—you're making me a little nervous. How big is the trouble that could come out of this?_"

"_Relax, Sekat. I'll see you in a few hours._"

"Us?" Vasir was looking back to the Mandalorians.

"One of our people might have been with her during the time of the attack. We can't be certain." Vasir had a rather discontented look at Aay'han.

"This must be important. The target already sent people to kill her once."

Vasir grabbed Shepard's shoulder, "I know where the Dracon Trade Center is. My car's outside."

Aay'han nodded, "Then we'll follow close behind."

"Let's go."

* * *

The two skycars arrived to the Dracon Trade Center though everything seemed rather calm. As the group walked up the stairs from the landing pad, Vasir was scanning comm. traffic, "The Baria Frontiers offices are located on the third floor. I don't hear police chatter; we must have missed the party."

An explosion went off just above the Dracon sign. "Liara's in there!"

Soon enough more explosion went off as the shockwave knocked Vasir, Shepard and the others back. Debris was thrown out as panicked civilians were crushed and killed or severally injured. Recovering from the blast, Tali looked at the chaos, "Keelah!"

Vasir shock off the shockwave, turning to Shepard, "They just took out three floors to make sure she's dead! I'll grab the skycar and seal off the building from the top!"

With Vasir running back to the skycar, Shepard replied, "I'll start down here and work my way up."

"Just leave some for me," Vasir smiled as she flew up to the top.

Aay'han quickly contacted the _Tervho_, "Sigma Squad, this is the Advisor. The Dracon Trade Center has just been hit! High yield explosive across three stories of the building. Several casualties, few survivors. We need medical teams to provide assistance. Be advised, we may have Shadow Broker agents on the scene. We also have an asari Spectre, Tela Vasir."

"_We copy. Palva and Rang will be there shortly._"

* * *

Mandalorians were loaded up and riding in the _Ne'tra Kyr'am _as Aran gave them the rundown. "Mandalorians, it seems the Shadow Broker doesn't want T'Soni or that data to leave the Dracon Trade Center. Now that he's drawn first blood it's time we showed him our wrath! Palva, Rang, your priority are the civilians and IM-6 will assist the two of you. The _Ne'tra Kyr'am_ will be at your disposal should you need them to transport the civilians. Nyona and the triplets will be watching your back should Broker agents decide to mess with you. The rest of us will split into two team and look for Bev, T'Soni and Sekat. First team is going in the front door. It'll be composed of myself, Tare, Taridus and Kix. Second team will go from the roof and clear any potential hostiles. The General will be in charge of this team and under her command will be Forta, Sal and Rojas. Just remember our training for office scenarios and keep to the thicker walls for cover." With everyone clear on their objectives, Aran walked over to Nyona to speak with her privately, "Do you know anything about this Vasir beyond her exploits publicly available on the extranet?"

"Maybe…" Nyona looked troubled. She was leaning against the closed door as she recalled, "I know the Broker has agents everywhere. Aria has killed plenty of them, half weren't even aware that they were spying for him. But I think Vasir might be an active agent of the Shadow Broker, or at least she deals with him regularly."

"You absolutely certain about that?"

Nyona started shaking her head in doubt, "I don't know. But I do know that slaver ring she busted on Nasurn couldn't have been done on her own or with the STG. She had to have used Intel from someone like the Broker to catch the ringleader."

Aran looked out to the city as it zoomed past, "Sounds like we're going in hot… Alright everyone, just try to act like we don't know she's a possible Shadow Broker operative. General, if you can, try and confirm if she is or isn't."

Lissarkh nodded, "I will be discreet about it. I have read that you asari can meld with another's nervous systems, a more direct means of reading one's thoughts. I've yet to see if an asari can 'sense' my thoughts invading one of theirs."

"Wait!" Nyona looked rather confused, "You've never invaded our thoughts before?"

Lissarkh walked past the others as she worked her way to Nyona, "Only the surface thoughts that Pyth can hear and speak to. The only mind I have invaded in this galaxy was your team's turian medic, Palva." Lissarkh turned back to Palva, "To which, I hope she is willing to forgive me for such an action."

The others turned to Palva as she nodded, "It's been a while since then, but I accept your apology."

The lights in the cabin deactivated as it switched to the red lighting. "_ETA to the site, two minutes. And I've gotta say, you're not going to like it._"

"_Damn it! This is a civilian site! Bastards!_"

"_Cool it, Jak. Save that rage for actual targets._"

* * *

**A/N: **That was rather explosive, and Rang wasn't at fault for any of it. I always had a bit of a gruff that Shepard just tells Vasir 'Oh, well Liara is hunting the Shadow Broker'. The Shadow Broker has his hand in everything(minus Omega). It's like telling Norman Osborn that Spiderman is Peter Park but asking him not to tell the Green Goblin. That just me, I don't see why anyone with a Spectre title should be trusted with everything without having to prove anything.

_**Mandalorian Translation:** _

cyare(SHAH-ray)- beloved

Ramikad'ke'gyce cur'eta ehn(RAH-mee-KAHD-keh-GHEE-shay COOR-ay-tah ayhn)- Rule 43

Don't quote me and say this is how its suppose to be said. I had to fall back onto the Mando'a agglutinative ways of combining two, or more, words together to make a new word. Eg. 'dar' means 'no longer' and 'jetii' is Jedi. Combined as 'dar'jetii' is often contextually used for Sith.

So to clarify because the offical Mando'a dictionary doesn't have a word for 'Rule', 'Ramikad_'_ translates to 'commando' and 'ke'gyce' is 'order' or 'command'.


	75. Trade Disaster

**A/N: **Time to see the carrnage within the Dracon Trade Center.

* * *

With no time to wait for the other Mandalorians, Shepard and the team pressed into the Dracon Trade Center to look for Liara and Beviin. As expected the first floor was wrecked, bodies everywhere, burnt furniture and computers but the structural integrity was still there. Something Rang would not have left. The next room a few stairs up however was completely untouched and yet the area had several bodies. Aay'han spotted movement from one of them, a man in purple as he tried to pull himself up against a wall, "Mercs…came from the smoke…set the bombs…killing everyone…" The man could no longer hold on, passing where he lied.

Shepard contacted their ally, "Casualty here. Looks like he's got bullet wounds. Watch yourself, Vasir. They used military-grade hardware."

"_Bullet wounds? Guess this was more than just an explosion._"

On the upper level Rasen found a bomb that hadn't detonated. She deactivated its wireless signal and removed the charges to ensure it couldn't go off. "Vasir, I found a military-grade explosive device. It hasn't been armed."

"_Sloppy work. You use that kind of hardware when you don't have time to plan._"

Prudii took a look at the explosive as Aay'han contacted the others, "Rang, looks like we've got something along the lines of a core bomb here."

"_A core bomb…a lot of flare, but not much on the destructive side. Personal opinion though, others might disagree with my assessment._"

Aay'han looked back, "Sounds just like how the lower level looks. We heard about four blasts going off. How many do you think it would take to do that to three stories?"

"_Hmm…so I'm thinking they probably used twelve or so explosives, eleven because of the dud, four of them probably positioned near windows for dramatic effect. Maybe less, depending on how bad it is inside. A core bomb is great for making something look terrible, sometimes even fooling guys like us into believing the explosion was high yield and great for wiping out large groups of…infantry within a certain proximity. But as far as buildings go, the structural integrity shouldn't have been affect, much. I mean, unless they were crazy enough to strap one onto a strut or something. Oh wait, I can see the trade center now. Yep, defiantly core bomb equivalents. So the worst you should find will be barbequed bodies, roasted computers and charred furniture, maybe a few leftover fires here and there. Definitely a few blown out windows on the upper floors._"

* * *

"_Alright, thanks for the input, Rang. We're pushing ahead._"

"No problem, Advisor." Feeling rather smug that he was the one giving Intel to his squad's former advisor. Palva, Rang and IM-6 immediately moved to the injured civilians as Aran's team rushed into the building to catch up with Shepard.

Palva and IM-6 started to aid an injured salarian as Rang rushed off to the side of an asari. The _Ne'tra Kyr'am _took off to drop off the rest of the team on the roof. The triplets were helping however they could while Nyona kept her outs for anything that might be trouble for them. She spotted a skycar that landed in the parking lot, "Girls, eyes sharp! We've got company."

Bethila flared with a biotic field as Falie and Estellise grabbed their pistols. They weren't expected to see back up, "A justicar?"

The four asari lowered their weapons as Nyona greeted her, "I wasn't expecting to see you anytime soon, Samara."

"I came as soon as I received your message. Things are far dire than what was relayed."

"Message? What message?"

"It was from the Mandalorian known as Beviin. He stated that the Dracon Trade Center was under attack and that you required assistance. The message came just as I was about to board a ship heading for Thessia."

"That clever bastard…" Nyona turned back to the burning trade center, "You got us some extra reinforcements, huh?" Nyona turned her attention back to Samara, "You can help by lifting a few of these pillars off the people we can still save with the triplets. Once that's done I think the Commander could use your help inside."

Samara moved on, flaring her biotics as she started to lift one of the broken beams off a human long enough for Falie to pull him out. Samara was about to do it again for a salarian in the same situation until Palva stopped her and pulled her away from the salarian. "I gave him enough sedatives so he should no longer feel anything, but the damage is too severe. Even if he was at a hospital now, he's not going to make it."

IM-6 administered a small dose of medi-gel to an ailing turian before Rang called it on another victim. "Nighty night guy. Yeah, another one not leaving this place alive. Sorry buddy. Dagger, think you guys can come around for a medevac? We've got all of the people we're going to save right here."

"_We just dropped off team two. We'll be there shortly._"

* * *

At the entrance to the Baria Frontier's office, Shepard and the others were holding their position after encountered Shadow Broker agents. Rasen overloaded one of the agent's missile launcher long enough for Aay'han to gun her down.

As Shepard pushed on ahead, Prudii remained at the shattered remains of the Baria Frontier's window sign. He fired bolts from his bowcaster to keep a few agents down, turning back to the door and calling out "_Utrel'a_!"

Rushing to cover, Aran and his team now were next to Prudii, "_Din'kartay_."

"Aay'han and the Commander are pushing through Shadow Broker's army. No sign of T'Soni or Bev. We're still optimistic."

"The Shadow Broker's personal army? They must be on the right track. Mandalorians, we're pushing though, don't let any of them leave this building alive."

Kix and Taridus jumped over the cover as the others worked their way around and though the cubicals nearby. The two turians were cutting though another group of cubicals now, flanking two Shadow Broker agents in crossfire with the others.

Prudii pulled out one of his recon droids, sending it out to draw out Shadow Broker agents. Sitting ready with his bowcaster, Kix picked up on this and grabbed his sniper rifle. A rocket fired at the droid as it quickly retreated back to Prudii for safety. Three agents ran after the droid, only to find Shepard and the Mandalorians waiting for them. Prudii and Kix each took down an agent as Jack used her biotics to grab a hold of the last one as she and the others gunned her downed.

Aay'han moved up ahead as Tare followed up. Shepard followed behind them as the others waited in the area they cleared. Tare rolled to cover behind a fallen beam as Aay'han watched the hallway, signaling Shepard to move up. "Rocket!" Jack dove for cover as the rocket flew out the blow out window.

Tare augmented his rifle with disruptor rounds before he started to keep the agents down. Taridus took Aay'han's position as he moved on into the office spaces. Taridus peeked to see where the agents were pinned. "Hey Tare, think you can take down that salarian? I'll deal with the heavy."

"Let's see who can do it faster!"

As the two kept the agents occupied it gave Shepard, Jack and Aay'han time to get around them. Once in position, Jack unleashed a strong biotic shockwave that threw all of the agents into the air for a few seconds. Aay'han pulled out his pistol, placing two shots into a head while Jack just used her shotgun to finish a few of them off.

Aran turned back to his people, "Kix, Prudii, Tare. Hold this area. Don't let any Shadow Broker agent in or out." Prudii and Tare remained where they were as Kix covered the door they all had to come through earlier.

Shepard turned back, "Tali, stay with them and give them some extra support."

* * *

Lissarkh had Forta hack into what remained of Baria Frontier's security systems to find any sign of their missing comrade. As he did though he noticed another signature within the network. "Looks like Shadow Broker agents are trying to do the same thing we are. I'm going to cut all feeds to make it look like they were damaged by the explosion."

"Too bad we couldn't find Bev. It'd save us a lot of trouble."

Lissarkh hissed as she moved past Rojas, "Then he'd be dead by now."

Sal and Rojas looked to one another, slightly confused. "If you knew that we wouldn't find him with the surveillance, then why make Forta hack the system?"

"So our enemy could not have access to it as a potential resource." Using the Force, Lissarkh moved a fallen section of wall back into the office space it once separated. "Now we must hurry, I can sense one of these salarians in a panic. We cannot let the snake in the grass get to him first."

* * *

The team was waiting for the door to open now, as they waited they heard two weapons go off several seconds apart. The first one was clearly a shotgun and the second one came from a pistol. Shepard and Aay'han were in first as Taridus, Aran and Jack flanked them. A Shadow Broker agent fell to the ground just as Vasir holstered her pistol, "Damn it. If I'd been a few seconds faster, I could've stopped him."

Aran moved to check the body of a dead salarian. "Shit. Sekat you idiot." Aran started searching his body. "Where is it? Sekat would have the data on him." He moved to check on the lone agent, "This isn't over, one of these agents must have it on them."

Vasir was looking out the window, "That's too bad. Speaking of lost things, did you find your friends' bodies?"

"You mean these bodies?" Vasir and the others turned to find Bev and Liara walking into the room, dripping wet from the fire suppressant system, aiming their weapons on Vasir. The other Mandalorians responded by drawing their weapons on her as well.

Aran moved to be with the group again, "Surrender Vasir! You're outnumbered and outmatched."

"I don't know what you're talking about Mandalorian. This all must be some big misunderstanding. If all ofyou put your weapons down, I might forget that this ever happened."

Liara took a step forward, "We saw you! Beviin and I doubled back after we left. We watched you break into my apartment!"

Shepard drew out a Carnifex pistol, "You didn't know where Liara went, because she hid the message. You needed me to find it for you."

"Thanks for the help."

"Once she had our location, she signaled the Shadow Broker's forces. They bombed the building to take us out." Vasir moved back to lean against the window as Liara continued, "She found Sekat, took his data, and killed him. I'm guessing she's still got the disk on her."

Vasir flashed the disk in her right hand, "Good guess. Not that you'll ever see what's on it…" Vasir flared her biotics as the window behind her cracked, "you pureblood bitch!"

Vasir broke the glass and tossed the fragments out at the group. Everyone braced for the shards, covering their faces while trying to avoid the majority of the shards. Bev even pulled Rasen around, his back ready for a mess of shards. However Jack and Liara projected a biotic sphere to protect everyone.

As they tried to come back Vasir tried to run for it. Shepard quickly recovered from the scare and tackled Vasir. Shepard tried to grab hold of the ledge but Vasir dragged him down. The two got into a fist fight as Vasir slowed their decent with her biotics. Vasir was able to get an advantage and kicked Shepard down to the ground roughly one full story. Vasir was about to finish Shepard, unfortunately for her Liara jumped out. Vasir ran off as Liara quickly gave chase. Vasir ran down the hall as two more Shadow Broker agents tried to cover for her, but Liara wasn't deterred. She knocked both of them back with her biotics, not even losing her stride as she ran after Vasir.

"Shepard!" Jack had used her biotics to jump down as well to be at the Commander's side as the other Mandalorians rushed to catch up.

"Prudii, Vasir's running. Get to the Commander. He's ground level." Aran pulled out the sniper components for his DC-17, "Ready for a little target practice?"

"Music to my ears, boss." Taridus steadied his assault rifle against the wall as the two prepared to cover the others.

Prudii, Kix, Tare and Tali found Jack as she slapped Shepard back up, "Damn it you idiot! If you die on me now, I'll kill you!"

"Nice to see you too, Jack." With Shepard back on his feet, the door leading to Eldfell-Ashland Energy side opened with a group of Shadow Broker agents. Aran got the first kill before they could set a foot into the plaza while Taridus opened fire to make them scatter long enough for the others to find cover.

Prudii killed the next of the troopers with his bowcaster as Kix used the Viper to make the other duck for cover. Jack unleashed a powerful biotic shockwave that threw the last agent out into the air long enough for Tare to kill him.

With the lifeless body crashing back down, Tali used her combat drone to distract a new group of Shadow Broker agents. Aran had a clear shot and killed another of the agents with the DC-17m sniper while Taridus drew the attention of a vanguard. Tali was able to energy drain the vanguard's barrier, giving Shepard a chance to finish her.

* * *

As Aran and Taridus started to work their way back down, they ran across Lissarkh and her group. "General, we have to hurry."

"Yes, the Vasir you spoke of works for the Shadow Broker."

"Yeah, and Liara went after her like an angry Gundark."

* * *

Returning to the main floor a Shadow Broker agent was flung into the wall of lockers. Expecting trouble the team came out with their rifles at the ready. Instead they found Samara finishing the last Shadow Broker agent with her biotics. "Ah Commander. Nyona said you might need my assistance. It would seem she was correct."

"What are you doing here, Samara?"

"I called her." Bev put a round into the agent that was flung over to their location. "I asked Liara to send her a message after her apartment was attack. Fortune would have it that she was still on Illium at the time."

Shepard and everyone ran outside. The civilians were all gone, but Liara and Vasir were in the middle of a fight in the parking lot. Vasir saw Liara's reinforcements, so instead of attempting to fight against so many at once, she remotely controlled her skycar to pick her up. She snuck the car underneath their platform and ran toward it. Vasir managed to jump onto it, quickly entering before the canopy closed and fled. "Damn it!"

Liara ran into a vacant car as Shepard also entered, "I'm fine, by the way. Thanks for asking."

Jack hopped in as Bev was also getting in as well. Prudii grabbed Bev's shoulder, "Wait." He took off his electrobinocular from his helmet, "Take her down."

Bev attached the electrobinocular to his helmet, "You got it." The shuttle door closed as they gave chase to Vasir while the others waited for the gunship to return, The Mandalorians took up defensive positions, should more Shadow Broker agents decide to come back for another round.

* * *

Shepard had chased Vasir through the skies of Illium in their attempt to take her down. Vasir had attempted to shake them off by going against the traffic but that did little to avert them. After two accidents involving two separate trucks, Beviin had enough. "I'd suggest holding on to your weapons." Bev grabbed one of his pikes and fully extended it, forcing the tips to break through the canopy and floor.

"What are you doing back there?"

Bev lowered Prudii's visor over his helmet's visor, "Just hold her steady for five seconds and stay behind Vasir." He secured his DC-17m to his leg before grabbing his pistol. He opened the door and stuck his head out while gripping onto his force pike. With Vasir's car in sight, he tried to target her. As he read through the electrobinocular, Bev was actually quite impressed by his brother's abilities as he reactivated most of the visor's readout in order to get a proper target on her. With the adjustments made, Bev fired five shots. Four of the shots managed to hit the engines of Vasir's car as the fifth grazed the top.

Vasir lost lateral control of the car as Shepard moved up and rammed her into an incoming car. Vasir managed to regain enough control of the car to crash onto a nearby penthouse. The commotion caught the sensors of a LOKI security mech as it moved to investigate. Vasir pulled herself out of the wreck, bleeding and irritated. She grabbed her pistol and shot down the mech after grabbing her assault rifle. She watched as Shepard's car flew toward the landing area. She hobbled away as she contacted other Shadow Broker operatives, "I've crashed on Azure! Get me some damn backup!"

Bev was able to retrieve his force pike from the canopy as the team exited the vehicle. Lifting the electrobinoculars off his visor, he radioed for back up, "Mandalorians, we forced Vasir down onto the resort Azure. Shadow Broker agents will be here shortly."

"Too late. The party's already starting!" A truck with five Shadow Broker agents on board flew up and landed in front of the main entrance. Jack grabbed two of the agents with her biotics and sent them flying to the ground level.

Liara threw down a singularity field, catching the two unshielded agents while staggering the salarian long enough for Shepard and Beviin to finish him just in time for reinforcements to start arriving.

* * *

With everyone inside the _Ne'tra Kyr'am_, the Mandalorians were on route to Azure. Rang turned to Samara, "Hey, I've been meaning to ask you, since Liara, Nyona and the others don't ever want to talk about it. What does 'azure' mean in the asari language?"

Nyona stepped between Samara and Rang, "Please don't. I won't hear the end of it until he dies."

Samara however didn't seem to be too uncomfortable about it. "Azure is actually a slang term developed on Illium to describe a part of the asari body."

"Exactly where are we talking about?"

"Mainly the lower reaches-near the bottom."

"No, not where the slang came from. I mean where on an asari."

"It was in reference to both."

"Wa…wait wait, so 'azure' is basically the asari equivalent to a female human's vagina?"

"If that is what the region is called where child birth occurs, than yes."

Nyona slammed her helmet against the door, "Goddess, you just caused a wildfire…"

"So when people say 'I'm going to 'Azure' they're basically saying they're going to 'the pussy'?" Rang started laughing hysterically now, "I've got a new thing to laugh at people with!"

"Told you, fuel to the fire." Nyona smacked the back of Rang's helmet he could say another word. "You start using it and that smack will be the least of your worries."

* * *

**A/N: **Sorry about skipping over the car chase but really what does the team do besides let Shepard fly them through the skies of Illium, boring! That and I wanted to end things off on a bit of a lighter note with azure.

_**Mandalorian Translation:** _

Utrel'a(oo-TREy-lah)- clear, as in "All clear"

Din'kartay(deen-KAR-tie)- sitrep


	76. Spectre vs Spectres

**A/N: **Sorry, I've been a bit down. Some weirdo accused me of infringement over a name I gave a Sith Lord in another story, Lesser of Two Sins.

* * *

Bev pinned down another Shadow Broker agent to the ground with his force pike as Shepard killed another one. As they cleaned up the last group of agents, another truck was about to land behind them. In the middle of the chaos one of the patrons tried to flee in a skycar, crashing into the Shadow Broker agents' truck. The agents fell to their death as the truck rammed into the building. With this opening presented to them Liara ran off toward the crashed truck, "Come on! We can climb over to get to Vasir's car!"

Jack turned to Bev as she nudged him, "I'd hate to see her in a bad mood."

As Shepard, Bev and Jack reached the burning wreck, Liara was already moving away from it, "A blood trail. Vasir got hurt in the crash."

"That should slow her down."

Bev checked on a dead asari security personnel, "I doubt it."

As they continued to follow the blood trail Jack was rather impressed. "This asari bitch is one tough s.o.b."

"She's a Spectre. It's expected of her to be. Keep your guards up, she won't go down without a fight."

Traveling through another room, they found a bloody handprint on a door that led out to a patio were several patrons were having the time of their lives. None of the patrons or the servers were paying Vasir any attention as she tried to limp herself away.

The team ran up as they drew their weapons on her while Liara shouted, "Vasir! It's over!"

Vasir stopped. She limped to her left, remembering a server she just past and called out to her, "Hey! Hey, you. Come here." Vasir used her biotics to quickly move herself behind the human female. Reappearing, Vasir grabbed the server by her neck and drew a pistol on Shepard. The other patrons and servers quickly fled back inside as Vasir whispered to the woman, "What's your name?"

"M-Mariana."

"Mariana, you want to live, don't you? Tell those people that you want to live."

"Please…"

Shepard calmly tried to ease the hostage. "We'll get you out of here safely, Mariana."

"Well, that's good to hear. All you had to do was walk away." Vasir moved the pistol to Mariana's head, "Now it gets ugly."

Mariana started crying, begging Vasir. "Please. I have a son."

Vasir smiled as she taunted T'Soni. "A son? I hope he gets to see you again. I've heard losing a parent is just horrific for children. Scars them for life."

"I'm going to end you, Vasir."

Shepard turned to Liara, "It's okay, Liara. We'll handle it. The usual way."

"You want Mariana's little boy to grow up without a mommy, Shepard? Thermal clips on the ground, now. Power cells, too."

Bev moved in front of Shepard and Liara with his DC-17m aimed at her. "Vasir, do you know why Mandalorians are so feared?"

"Is it because of how destructive you can be? Or because of your impressive track record as mercenaries and bounty hunters?"

Bev shifted his aim slightly, "No. Because of our ancestors. Nearly 4,000 years ago a Galactic Republic, twice the size of Citadel Space, was brought to its knees by the Mandalorians. The slaughter and near extinction of the Cathar people, the nuclear orbital bombardment of Serroco, the conquest of hundreds of worlds… Mandalorians don't stop to fight around civilians, we go through them. I have her head in my sight. One shot for her, the rest of the mag is going into you."

Vasir aimed her pistol at Bev, "You're bluffing!"

"Try me." During this exchange, Liara was hiding behind him as she used her biotics to grab one of the tables behind Vasir. "Now!" Liara flung the table at Vasir, causing her to drop her pistol and sending her flying into the fountain. Shepard helped Mariana up so she could flee. With her gone, the team prepared for a hard fight.

Vasir bursting out of the water in a fantastic biotic display, she used a biotic charge to send herself away from Shepard's group and grabbed her assault rifle. Jack tried to surprise Vasir with a biotic shockwave, but the Spectre countered with her own ending in a biotic explosion in the middle of the fountain. Liara however took this opportunity during the chaos to try and kill Vasir herself. She fired off a biotic warp before unloading her SMG against the asari Spectre. Vasir however wasn't going to go down without a fight. She built up her biotic energy before she used it to charge head first into Bev. The Mandalorian however covered his face with his arms yet he did not brace for the impact. As he was sent flying by Vasir's charge, Bev dropped a small orb at Vasir's feet. Bev crashed into a table but not before the orb detonated, blinding Vasir.

Shepard and the team didn't waste this opportunity as they unloaded against Vasir's top of the line experimental armor and biotic barrier. Beviin quickly recovered from the blast to join the others and by the time Vasir's sight recovered, her barrier was down by fifty percent. Vasir quickly used a biotic charge to get herself to the upper level balcony. "Back in a bit. Have fun!"

Bev was the first to spot why Vasir was so quick to ditch them. "Rocket drone on your four, Commander!"

Liara lashed out with a biotic stasis against one of the drones, freezing it in midair as Shepard and Bev focused on the remaining drone. Jack however was more concerned with the Broker agents heading their way. Before the truck could land the reinforcements, a very familiar humming started to resonate before the comms came alive, "_The cavalry has arrived!_" The Mandalorian gunship came flying toward them as four green beams from the gunship hit the truck. The truck and their passengers were sent falling to their doom.

"_Ha! Take that you Shadow Broker bastards!_"

Gun fire found its way to _Ne'tra Kyr'am_, but the shield was able to take the hits. "_Shield strength holding at 68%._"

"_And I see the bugger shooting. A Mantis gunship!_"

"_Dagger, Swoop! Get us out of here before it decides to cut us through!_"

_Ne'tra Kyr'am_ pulled back as they dropped down to the lower levels of Illium with the gunship following. Vasir reappeared on the balcony, "Miss me?" before she used her biotics to rush herself back into the fight.

As Jack and Liara kept Vasir busy, Shepard noticed something rather unusual. "Bev, what gives with Vasir's barrier strength? And why didn't they recharge?"

"Almost…" Bev was already looking into the matter when Shepard took cover behind the tipped table Bev was using for cover. "Got it. I didn't recognize the armor because it's been heavily modified. Rumors have been circulating around the Terminus about an experimental armor produced from Jormangund Technology."

"Jormangund? But they've been gone for years. Why would those rumors persist?"

"There's a man on Omega who insists that he was an executives for the company and that years ago someone stole the only working prototype they had. The company poured every credit into it. I'm thinking either Vasir, or someone associated with the Broker stole the prototype. Supposedly it was built with the strongest barriers and armor plating ever conceived for combat armor. The drawback however was that the recharge system had to be scrapped to boosted the shielding to such an unprecedented degree. The suit is supposed to have a separate unit to help recharge it. Vasir might not have that unit with her, or it doesn't exist."

"So, any suggestions?"

"Nothing you haven't heard before. Head down low, and keep up the pressure until she's dead."

* * *

The Shadow Broker agents continued to pursue _Ne'tra Kyr'am_ to the lower levels of Illium as they tried to gun them down. "Say Dagger, this place kinda reminds me of that mission on Ossus."

"You mean when we had five Vultures trying to gun us down? We had back up back then."

"We still might. Hand controls over for a bit. And don't fire." With full control, Swoop took the gunship and brought them back up toward civilian air traffic. "Their girl's maneuverable. Let's see how she handles a police pursuit?" Swoop banked right as their pursuer started firing. The shots destroyed a billboard that was hiding a police car.

The Shadow Broker agent didn't seem to care about the cops that started to give chase as it continued to try and shot the Mandalorians down. "Your plan isn't working!"

"Hold on. You just got to give it a minute or two." Swoop continued to give the Shadow Broker team a run for their credit as they entered a tunnel. It was eerily devoid of any traffic, coming or going.

That was until they reached other end of the tunnel. A police barricade with their own gunships was waiting for them. "Swoop!"

At last moment he turned around as the Shadow Broker gunship ran into the blockade. "It there problem now. Time to get back to Bev."

* * *

Bev's hacked rocket drone made quick work of the Shadow Broker teams that arrived as Jack finished off one up close with her shotgun. Shepard tore through the other drone as Liara threw out another singularity field to keep the agents back long enough for Jack to throw a shockwave for a biotic explosion. With the last of the agents dead, Vasir reappeared, "I'll finish you, myself."

Vasir charged in the middle of the group as she opened fire with her Vindicator Battle Rifle on Liara. Liara quickly dove for cover while the others tried to break Vasir from her target. Without her barrier to protect her, Vasir used a biotic charge to get out of the way. Vasir was now trying to build up her power for a massive attack, but Bev had already reacquired her and was pouring every shot he could to stop her. Shepard fired off a concussion shot as Liara and Jack fired off more biotic attacks. The combined assault overloaded Vasir, causing her to stagger for a moment before using a charge to get away from them.

Vasir launched another shockwave at the group before the same buzzing sound started to fill the air. "_Vasir! Your time is up!_" The Mandalorian gunship had reappeared with both port and starboard doors fully opened and Prudii with his M-98 'Black' Widow aimed at her. Vasir barely had enough time to move and use her Vindicator to refract the shot just enough that it only took out a portion of her left shoulder guard and sent her to the ground. Vasir quickly recovered and moved to grab one of the Carnifex pistols from a dead salarian agent.

As Vasir grabbed for the pistol, Bev grabbed his combat knife and threw the blade at Vasir's exposed calf. The undersuit stopped the blade from completely sinking into her but the blade still penetrated, causing Vasir to let out a pain filled shriek. Vasir ripped the blade out of her leg and tossed it aside, limping back to fight them. Liara created a warp and threw it at Vasir, but the Spectre created her own to deflect the biotic field with and followed up with several shot at T'Soni. Support fire from Jack and Shepard was too much and Vasir tried to use a biotic charge to give herself some distance. Unfortunately for Vasir she finally ran out of steam, limping toward the ledge before she collapsed to her knees in pain, dropping the pistol. "Damn it! Damn it."

Liara didn't even wait for Vasir to bleed out. She grabbed a disc from one of Vasir's pouches as she scanned it with her omni-tool. "Sekat's personal datapad. This has what we need to find the Shadow Broker."

As she and Shepard walked way, Vasir laid herself against the wall, "You're dead. The Shadow Broker has been in power for decades. He's stronger than anything you've ever faced!"

Shepard stopped and turned back to her, "Is that why you sold out the Council to work for him?"

Vasir shook her head, "You think I betrayed the Council? Like Saren? Go to hell! The Broker's given me damn good intel over the years. Intel that saved lives and kept the Citadel safe! So if the Broker needs a few people to disappear, I'll pay that price without hesitation!"

"Spectres don't blow up buildings filled with innocent people!"

Bev walked over after he heard Shepard say that. "Actually they do. Spectres are given the power to do anything and everything to get the job done. Casualties are acceptable."

Vasir knew her time was soon, she wasn't going to wipe the blood coming from her mouth. "The Mandalorian's right. We get our hands dirty so the Council doesn't have to. The councilors might complain about our methods to soothe their consciences, but they never look too closely. Besides, you're with Cerberus. You have any idea what your terrorist friends have done?"

"I know who they are and what they've done. It doesn't matter."

"I think it does. You want to judge me? Look in the mirror. Kidnapping kids for biotic death camps! Hell, your own unit on Akuze! And you're with them. Don't you dare judge me! Don't you…" Vasir finally collapsed and the two walked away from her corpse.

Bev left Liara to Shepard as he retrieved his knife from the ground. Jack slapped Bev's pack, "Damn, that asari bitch was one hell of a fighter."

Bev completely ignored her as he wiped the purple blood off the blade and returned it to its sheath. Bev returned to Vasir's body now, "Yeah I was thinking the same thing."

He picked up her body and started walking back to the cars. He found Shepard and Liara walking as T'Soni noted, "He'll know about Vasir before long."

"Not unless he thinks she's still alive." Bev walked past the two. "Mandalorians, with the cooperation of Justicar Samara, will continue to 'chase' Vasir while we go directly to the source and cut him down."

Shepard tried to stop him, "Wait. About that bluff you did back there…"

Bev stopped, but he didn't turn to look to him. "Rule 54: The key to a good bluff is not to bluff." He continued to walk, "Besides, I gave T'Soni the cover she needed to do what she did."

* * *

With a remote control in Vasir's new car, the Mandalorians continued the 'chase' as Nyona pretended to be Vasir requesting reinforcements. The plan was working as it gave Shepard and the _Normandy_ a chance to reach the Shadow Broker's base of operation with Rang and Bev providing assistance.

While on transit however two of the _Normandy_'s guests were becoming very flustered. "AH! This is absolutely infuriating!" the Draethos scientist, Silis Pyth, screamed, and even the astromech droid R4-C3 was losing her patience as well.

Shepard and the two commandos went to investigate and found her in the Research Lab on Deck 2. Pyth had laid her face down on a table with piles of papers and datapads around her and C3's head spinning. "What happened here doc?"

Pyth continued to keep her head down, "After you returned from that incident with that Cerberus operation, I requested C3's aid in something."

"But that was a few days ago."

"I know, Commander." Pyth slowly lifted her head, "I asked EDI to provide me with as much visual data on the Reapers as she salvaged from the Collector Base. Harbinger and Sovereign to be specific. They perplex me… I had to find my answer. And unfortunately I may have caused poor little C3 to blow a fuse. If I had hair, or feathers may be the more appropriate epidermal growths, I probably would have pulled them all out by now."

Shepard looked over her various works and alterations on the Reaper form. "I don't understand what you two are trying to do. From these it looks like you're trying to modify them."

"Yes. I was curious as to why the Reapers chose this form. It's over cumbersome, size and weight distribution is uneven, without its mass effect fields a Reapers own weight would crush itself on a world such as your Earth and its gravity. Everything about this form serves little purpose or is inefficient. The six limbs on the undercarriage, to the way it flies. Organic or synthetic, a form has to have function in order to remain. Evolution demands the removal or vestigiality of non-essential components. Such as the vestigial appendix within you humans, or the pelvic bone within a Sluissi. The closest image in your human mythology I can compare the species to would be the creature your species called 'nāga', except the human half was reptilian."

Rang looked at one of Pyth's reworks of a Reaper, "I don't see what all of the fuse is about doc. Things look like giant space squids to me."

"Squid…squid…" Pyth threw all of her papers off the desk, only recovering an image of Harbinger she had knocked over. "Beviin. The Confederacy used a ship that's very squid like in its movements…"

"The _Trident_-class assault ship. What about it?"

"Yes, yes. C3, do you have any images of that vessel?" C3's head finally stopped spinning as the holoprojector started to display the four tendril ship landed. "Now show it in flight, or swimming." The hologram of the squid shaped vessel disappeared for a moment as the drill-spike on its underside was removed. The vessel used its thrusters to gain altitude as it started to used its four arms to help propel itself even faster and to control its direction. "For the vessel to act like a cephalopod the limbs required multiple gliding joints, but the Reapers have only two to three hinge joints at any given limb with a ball and socket joint at the base…so maybe…" Pyth pushed the trio out, "Go I wish to work alone with C3 now. I'll call someone when I have something. Good day." The door shuts as she quickly returned to star her work up again.

"Geez, give her an idea and she seals up."

Bev walked away, "Come on, we need to get ready. The Shadow Broker probably won't like guests."

"I'm always ready, _vod_. With enough explosives to take most places down if need be. The Broker won't know what hit 'em till it's too late."

Shepard grabbed Rang, "We're saving Feron first."

"Fine, save that backstabber if you want. But the Broker dies today. T'Soni will make sure of that."

* * *

The _Normandy_'s stealth systems active, the shuttle launched with Liara, Shepard, Bev and Rang. As the shuttle entered the atmosphere they could feel the turbulence getting rougher. "Hagalaz. The oceans boil during the day, then snap-freeze ten minutes after sundown."

From his seat, Shepard looked out the viewport of the shuttle at the storm raging. "The Shadow Broker lives in this?"

Bev looked out the viewport as they approached the Shadow Broker's ship within the maelstrom, "The perfect way to hide when you don't want to be discovered. The ship has to constantly follow the setting sun in order to survive. The storm also provides an adequate shield from those who stumble upon this planet. Otherwise they can't hide from someone who knows where to look."

Shepard stood up, "And I'm assuming you have a plan on how we're getting inside."

"Personally I say we blast a hole in the hull once we get past the maintenance area and go guns blazing from there."

"But we're not." Bev stepped in front of Rang as he activated his omni-tool with the ship on display. "The Shadow Broker has locked down the shuttle bay but passive scans have found a hatch near the midsection of the ship. But we're going to have to work our way from the back of the ship just to be safe."

Liara grabbed a breathing mask as the ship neared the drop zone Bev indicated, "But we can't stay outside for long. There's a constant lightning storm where the hot and cold air collide."

The hatch opened as Rang grabbed his rifle shouting, "Time to lock and load ladies and germs."

* * *

**A/N: **I used the name of a PC cheat company back in the first ME game. It was always weird(at least to me) why Vasir's armor and bariers were the strongest ever seen(except for maybe a Banshee in ME3). The only reason Rang is with them is to make sure Feron is fine and because I thought he'd have plenty to say. I always felt that the second squadmate during the last portion of the DLC was more of a third wheel to Liara, despite the acknowledgement the Shadow Broker gives. I plan to have the other Mandos get more action with Samara so they won't be bored.

_**Mandalorian Translation:** _

Nothing I haven't already translated at one point prior.


	77. Eye of the storm

**A/N: **I'm back with a vengence, and its taking a bit longer to finish, but that's a good thing I suppose. I can lead off to something instead of ending with the Broker confrontation.

* * *

Forta was in control of the skycar while Nyona made another call to Shadow Broker agents. "Damn it you idiots! Where the fuck is my back up? These Mandalorians are persistent. And the Broker will have your hides if this data falls in their hands!" Nyona switched off that channel, "Well that should get them motivated."

Aran however seemed to have zoned out. He was leaning against the back alone. Aayhan moved back there, "Whenever you're like this there's something wrong. What are you worried about?"

Aran turned back, "It's what Vasir said before she died. She said that the Broker has been in power for decades, but that seems to contradict the information we've been able to get on him." Aran finally turned to their oldest galactic resident within the gunship. "Samara, within your lifetime, how long has the Shadow Broker been in power, or at least been a known figure?"

"A curious question. But to answer it, I have heard the whispers of the Shadow Broker for most of my life. The Shadow Broker's presence has been felt within the galaxy long before my birth. It is rumored that the Shadow Broker has information and contacts within every space faring species' government, minus the quarians."

"So why would Vasir say he's been in power for decades instead of centuries?"

"I can't believe it…" Everyone turned their attention to Rojas. "The Dread Pirate Roberts."

"The who?"

"Oh come on, was Rang only pestering me about it? It comes from an old book created back on Earth, around the 1970's, of which became a movie about a decade later." Rojas quickly explained as the others just patently stared at him. "So, the Dread Pirate Roberts is a legendary pirate captain feared throughout the seven seas for his fighting skills, ruthlessness and for never taking prisoners. Thing is, the original retired years ago, from when the story starts. The trick is that he trains a successor to replace him, hiring a new crew and calling him Roberts in his stead. It's the name that sells the business. The Shadow Broker could be doing the same thing, choosing a successor of his information network empire. The new Broker would only need to continue in his predecessor's mannerisms, and no one would be the wiser because no one has ever seen the Broker in person, and lived. I mean other than Vasir."

"I hate to admit it, but that sounds like the best explanation we've got."

"Hey what do you mean, 'you'd hate to admit it'?"

Aay'han rammed his helmet against Rojas', "What I mean is I'd hate to think that a book a century old is our best clue to an info broker who's wrapped in the ultimate enigma and has existed far longer."

Aran pulled the two apart, "Enough! Bev and the Commander will learn the truth soon enough. Right now we focus on keeping the Broker's eyes on us." As the chase continued, three Mantis gunships and a group of pickup trucks with soldiers riding back were following from high above.

* * *

Beviin has been jamming communication to keep the agents in the dark of their movements, however the lack of response from the patrols is bound to get suspicious soon enough. With another singularity field sending a group of LOKI mechs into the storm the team worked their way into the ship's interior. What they found was a technological marvel, all of the built up electricity flowing through large tubes as a series of plates help to regulate, store and discharge built up static. "This ship is incredible. It must have taken decades to build in secret."

"I wonder what happened to the contractors."

Rang watched the series of plates flow like a wave, "Well I don't think we need to think that hard given how no one in this galaxy uses anything close to this."

Liara took a closer look at the plates as they transferred electricity, "Navigating this storm is brutal. If the ship's engines stop even for a moment… At least the Shadow Broker would go down with us."

"I wish you hadn't said that aloud."

"Yeah seriously." Rang spinning an EMP grenade in his hand, "Eight plans have filled my noggin, and they all involve sending this ship down to the planet below. Two end up with a sacrifice from one of us, and one I just drop this right now and we hop a ride back to the _Normandy_."

Bev started scanning a piece of tech that looked very familiar to him. "Just as I thought, motion dampeners. Once inside the main hold of the ship I bet there are auditory dampeners to silence the storm outside completely."

"Either that or he has a jamming bass with a great playlist." Liara gave Rang a shrill look she made sure he saw, "What?"

"Can't you ever take anything seriously?"

"This is me being serious, doc. I just never sound like it, like Bev or Aran. Plus, losing three squads in the Killing House doesn't exactly help a biological eight-year-old's mental development."

Bev answered before Liara or Shepard even asked, "The Killing House is an anti-terrorist operation training facility. The layout never stayed the same and we're never told if we're using live ammunition or simulated rounds. _Buir_ called it culling the weak and stupid from her batch before she started to actually care for us. If we didn't take training seriously, then we wouldn't take actual scenarios seriously."

"And my coping mechanism just happens to be humor and my winning personality."

Liara looked away, rather ashamed of herself, "I'm sorry, I didn't know…"

Something Rang still didn't seem to care one lick about, "There's no way you could've known about our past, I mean not unless you can hack through Bev's security and access a few personal files of mine or read our minds." Rang opened the door leading to another walkway, "Hey, come on. I don't wanna miss the Broker's face when we kick in the doors with his pants down."

* * *

The Broker continued to monitor Vasir's progress as lost more agents to the Mandalorians' new gunship. "Vasir, I want you to delete the data."

"_What?! If I do that and the Mandalorians catch me, I'm dead!_"

"Do not worry about them. I have ordered my agents to capture them alive. More are being sent to intercept them. I have some vested interested in them for a few of my projects. Not to mention their technology. If this all goes well, you will be rewarded greatly for your efforts."

"_I don't want just intel this time! I want real compensation!_"

"I assure you Vasir, your compensation will be more than sufficient."

Before the Broker could prepare a possible package for Vasir, his info drone came to his desk, "Shadow Broker, sensors indicate an unusual increase in debris accumulating onto the hull. Some areas where our records indicate no such accumulation has ever occurred on such scales within such a short amount of time."

The Broker displayed a hologram of the ship as it highlighted all of the alerts by their timestamp along with a few unauthorized lighting rod movements. The pattern was very clear. The Broker cut the channel to Vasir before opening a link to the agents pursuing the Mandalorians, "Terminate Vasir. Bring them down, but remember, leave at least two of them alive for interrogation. I need their language." Without waiting for a response from them, the Broker now turned his attention to a closing problem. "It would seem we have unwanted visitors traversing the hull of my ship. Bring them to me, alive."

* * *

Nyona tried to reestablish a connection with the Broker before she finally gave up after the eighth time. "Well looks like we've been found out. Fifty says Rang's at fault."

"I'll take that action."

Forta knew what to do and didn't need Aran to tell him. He turned the X3M around and at full speed, rammed it against one of the gunships. Dagger then led their pursuers down toward the bay. The tail gun continued to fire on them until one of the Broker's gunships moved into the line of fire. Without as much fear for civilian casualties, the gunship doors opened and turned. Allowing Samara and Lissarkh to grab the enemy gunship with biotics and the Force, respectfully, and slammed it down into the water. Swoop armed two of their air-to-air missiles and fired on the last gunship after getting a target lock. Unfortunately for the pilot of the enemy ship he didn't see the missiles hidden underneath their wings. Lissarkh then the Force again to divert the crashing ship away from them.

Aran looked out to see at least twelve trucks full of Shadow Broker agents, all of them were ready to fight. "Mandalorians, let's give these bastards a watery grave!" Without missing a beat, Rook, Swoop and Jak started to cut through the trucks with the gunship's composite-beam lasers as the others started to open fire on the ones that weren't being shot down.

* * *

After crossing a bridge with no guard railing, the team found a door that lead into the main hold. Liara was the first to examine the door as Rang and Shepard covered them. "It's locked. Hang on, I've got a bypass shunt program that can crack it."

As Rang continued to watch the area, Shepard turned to the two, "How long will it take?"

"I don't know, Shepard. I've never broken into the Shadow Broker's base before. Well, not this one, anyway."

Rang however had little faith, "Can't we just blast it open instead? It'd be a lot faster."

"And the Broker will know we're here."

"I think the Broker already knows. We've got hostiles!"

Liara activated her shunt program as it started to work. Liara and Bev moved to cover with Shepard and Rang. Shepard turned to Liara "How long will it take?"

"It's illegal even on Illium. It didn't come with a warranty."

Rang stopped for a bit, "But you tested it, right? Bev?"

Bev shot at one of the lightning rods as the electricity discharged through the Shadow Broker agents, "Here come more of them!"

"Tell me you tested it!"

Liara created a singularity field as two of the agents were thrown into the air and the storm swept them away, "No time to talk!"

Rang rolled a frag grenade down the hull, exploding at the feet of an agent with a rocket launcher, "I bet they didn't see that one!"

Shepard was busy dealing with a biotic, "I didn't even see. Just keep them back."

Beviin however risked it and moved closer to the agents, fully extending his force pike as he batted one off the hull and skewed another through the chest. Rang was able to occupy another agent who thought he had the jump on the blue armored commando. With a moment of relative silence, Shepard turned back to the door, "Liara?"

"I'm sure it won't be much longer!"

"Remember the old days when you could just slap omni-gel on everything?"

Rang butted in, "I really didn't like that security upgrade!"

"I did." Bev jumped in as he was scanning for the enemy, "It made things too simple. If it's simple, anyone could do it."

"Well then mister 'I know how to slice anything without cheating', why don't you help the program work faster!" Rang then whispered to Shepard as Bev went to the door, "Sometimes you just have to edge him on enough to do these kinds of things. It works occasional."

Beviin watched as the shunt was only barely half way through with hacking the security. Bev went on the offensive, activating both of his omni-tools, he tackled two of the pieces simultaneously while leaving the last part of the lock to the shunt program. "Watch a true master crack this wide open."

"Yeah, you do that. We'll go ahead and kill these guys! No pressure." Shepard fired off a concussion shot at one of the agents and sending him into the storm. Liara used the lightning rod to stun a group of them long enough for Rang to pop off an anti-armor round between them all.

"Do you really think he'll be able to make a difference?"

"Bev?" Rang grabbed his LJ-50, stunning a Shadow Broker agent before pulling him over and stabbing him with his gauntlet vibroblade in his neck. "I think the shunt might actually be slowing him down a bit. Ain't that right, Bev!"

Bev was too focused on the hack to even hear him as he carefully bypassed the Broker's firewalls and anti-hacker programs. "Come on, less talking, more fighting. They need more time."

"Not much!" Firing the concussion rifle as Liara threw a warp field at the same target.

Pinning down the salarian, Bev and the shunt program were able to open the door. With Bev's signal on Rang's HUD, the commando pulled Liara and Shepard to the door while keeping the salarian down. During this distraction Rang placed a proximity mine at the ramp to the door while Bev worked on locking the door down once it had closed. With both set, the team entered the Shadow Broker's ship.

To the salarian's surprise he didn't hear them firing. He moved to investigate the door, only for Rang's mine to blast him to pieces, "Ah, gotta love mines."

* * *

The Broker was becoming rather infuriated by the progress made by the intruders. He could only assume it to be Dr. T'Soni and the Mandalorians who could destroy his defenses and breach his security so easily. He had already placed a contingent of his men throughout the ship, diverting a group to meet up with them at the door. Using the voice augmenter, he shouted through the loudspeakers that were all over his ship, "Hold your positions, no matter the cost." Fortunately for the Broker, the augmenter was also able to remove any sign of stress or anger he might have conveyed when he shouted. The Shadow Broker then turned his attention back to the Mandalorians on Illium as they continued to slaughter his operatives with relative ease.

* * *

Prudii fired his Widow again, killing the driver and sending another truck into the water. Shadow Broker operatives could be seen swimming away from the sinking trucks as the Mandalorians continued to focus their fire on the skies as more trucks and Mantis gunships arrived. Aay'han was back to back with Aran as the two gunned down more Shadow Broker agents, "Damn, what did you boys do to get this Broker to want to kill you so badly?"

"Nothing special." Aran moved to reload before joining back into the fray, "Denied him access or trade of our tech, language data and screwed a few of his operations."

"Is that all? Well I guess we should be calling this a complement."

Nyona, Samara and the triplets grabbed three gunships by their wings as their biotics slowly started to crushing them. Tare, Taridus and Rojas provided them cover until the three gunships lost their wings and plummeted into the water. From their Nyona grabbed her assault rifle and joined them. Lissarkh was restraining her use of her lightsaber, relying on her connection to the Force to send them to the water or killing them with the borrowed ACP repeaters. Even Palva was doing her part to help out, patching up any injuries sustained and sending them back into the fight.

* * *

After clearing through the guards, Bev was holding the team back. He could see a vanguard guarding a door. He signaled to Rang to get a grenade ready. Rang picked out the charge and handed it off to his brother. Bev counted down from three before tossing it into the room and pulling his head away from the doorway. It was a flashbang, and it blinded the asari, as well as an unseen other. Bev and Rang rushed in. Bev killed the asari with a jab from his gauntlet vibroblade while Rang snapped the neck of the salarian. Before the door opened, Rang and Bev grabbed the bodies before they hit the ground and pulled them away. As the door open, an operative walk right into a trap. Bev extended his force pick into the unsuspecting man's helmet, pinning him against the wall until the pike breached.

Two other agents were staying behind a desk waiting for them. One of the agents tried draw them out by firing wildly through the door. It proved to only be a waste of a thermal clip, with Rang appearing with his DC-17m anti-armor and him smiling behind his helmet, "Say goodnight!" He popped the grenade and obliterated the two before they could react. "Now that's how it's supposed to go! Give me some plate, vod!" to which Bev gladly smashed shoulder to shoulder with.

Liara accessed what was left of the terminal that Rang almost destroyed. "This is it!" She unlocked the door personally as Shepard covered her. Open, the two rushed in. In a special room was a bright scaled drell, unconscious and strapped to a very odd looking chair. "Feron!"

The sound of a familiar voice though seemed to cause the drell to awaken. "Liara?"

Liara ran to the only console in the small hallway, "Hold on—we're getting you out of here!"

Rang however grabbed her before a finger could touch the holographic display, "Hold up…"

"We can't just leave him in there!"

"Yeah, yeah…" Rang was too occupied with following the tubes to hear a word she even said. After a minute of looking he finally released T'Soni's arm. "Listen doc, if you really want to help him, don't touch that."

"But I can't just…"

Rang pointed, "You're not really paying attention are you? That chair is hooked up to a major power supply. Maybe directly into the info net, like those tubes we found. Look all I know is that these machines are torturing him and the only things keeping him alive. So unless we turn off the main switch, if we even attempt to free him his brain fries like a hanar on Tuchanka."

"Not something I wanted to imagine…"

"Right, forgot you guys live on that water world of theirs."

Bev continued to keep an eye on the main area as Shepard joined them, "Do you know where we can cut the power?"

Feron turned his head to his right, "It won't be easy. You'll have to go to central operations."

"Oh, the Broker's office," Rang waved over to Bev, "I was actually expecting to have met, threatened and or killed the Broker by now."

Seeing as Feron must have had face time, Shepard was hoping for some news, "What do you know about the Broker?"

"He did this to me."

"I was hoping you'd know what he is."

"I never got a good look, but he's big." Judging by the recovering bruises on Feron's face, it's not hard to imagine why, "The guards are terrified of him."

Liara then thought about a peculiar individual on Illium, Mr. Thax. "A krogan?"

"I don't know, but not everyone who visits his office comes back out."

"What could be bigger than a krogan?"

A question Rang immediately pounced on, "A Wookiee. A thresher maw. Oh I know, a harvester!"

"Is he serious?"

Bev, regretting he even asked the question, responded, "Partly."

"Easy or not, we're all getting out of here."

"Good." Feron leaned his head his right, "Central operations is down the hall. You know the Shadow Broker's waiting for you, right?"

Shepard grabbed his rifle, "I'm counting on it."

Liara deactivated her omni-tool, "We'll be back for you, Feron!"

Feron relaxed his head, "I'll try not to go anywhere."

"Eyes up! Reinforcements coming our way!"

The loudspeakers shouted with the Shadow Broker's augmented voice, "_I want all teams to outpost C._"

Rang grabbed another grenade and bounced it against the wall, "Droid popper!" he shouted as the two commandos moved away from it. The grenade released an EMP that disabled the asari's barrier and their weapons. Shepard moved up and used the Revenant to finish two agents. Liara blocked the asari's biotics long enough for Bev to move in close and kill her, breaking her right arm before snapping her neck.

Bev's thermal scanner still detected another humanoid hiding near the door they need to go through. Silently Rang found the agent, using his LJ-50, stunned him before punching his faceplate. "Ahhh…that hurt…" Bev stomped the downed agent just as a precaution.

They cautiously moved on through the ship, traveling through the corridors before Bev stopped them. "Outposts A to F are down!" Bev reconfigured his DC-17m to its sniper rifle. Readjusting his aim and killed the lone agent before he could react.

Liara opened the door which led to a small hall with another door.

Liara opened the door which led to a small hall with another door. Rang looked over to the others, "Looks like we get to lift the veil off the Shadow. Ready to kick the binders and light the pyres?"

"You've always wanted to say that one."

"Never felt right until now."

* * *

**A/N: **Since they don't give us a time of when the Shadow Broker starts working in the galaxy, I always felt he's been around since the Rachni Wars(my personal opinion). I'm rather excited about the recently announced Retaliation DLC. All of the new classes, weapons(I now laugh on all who bought the promotional crap for the Collector assault rifle) and all of the fixes that put into the game(the Banshee can't grabbing us from half a room away, reintroduction of headshot damage on Banshees, Brutes and Primes, krogans and batarians don't stagger as often, mods and powers working properly), not so about the other edits however(Geth Pime drones actually working, can't grab kill a Geth Pyro from cover, Vorchas can't use Flamer and Reegar Carbine simultaneously, and Cannibal's can 'stomp' downed players).

From a tactical point of view, I always found it, both suspicous and odd, that the Reapers would give up on such powerful weapons. I mean look at the Scion and Praetorian. A pair of Scions could pin you while a group of husks moved in for the kill. And I know for a fact that some of us dreaded the sound of the Praetorian coming after us if we were underprepared. And I don't see a shortage of bodies for the Reapers to use and twist.

_**Mandalorian Translation:** _

Nothing I haven't already translated at one point prior.


	78. A shift in the tide

**A/N: **And the time has come, the end of a very fun journey. But do not despair, I will continue, though under a new story.

* * *

Liara opened the door to the Shadow Broker's office. Bev and Rang took positions around Shepard and Liara as all four of them had their weapons trained on a fairly large being as he deactivated a terminal on his desk and waited patiently for them to finish moving into position. The unknown alien had three fingered hands that he had clasped together with a pair of horns on top of his head, red scales, four sets of eyes, what appeared to be fins behind the eyes, and an unusual mouth structure in the shape of a triangle with sharp teeth lining them.

With two assault rifles, an SMG, and a pistol aimed at his head, the being finally spoke, "Here for the drell? Reckless, even for you Commander."

Rang however wasn't going to let himself be ignored. "Yeah, keep talking azure face, your only signing your own death warrant."

Bev took a step away from Shepard, "This may be brunt, but your assassination attempt back on Illium wasn't exactly subtle either."

The Broker didn't seem fazed with the number of weapons pointed at him, as he calmly retorted, "Extreme, but necessary. As I know you are fully aware of."

Liara quickly reacted with rage, "No it wasn't! Neither was caging and torturing Feron for two years!"

"Dr. T'Soni," shifting his head to look to her as he continued, "Your interference caused all this. Feron betrayed me when he handed you Shepard's body. The drell is simply paying the price."

Shepard figured if Cerberus had intercepted the communication, they must have been hunting the Broker, with far less success compared to Liara. "Someone was bound to come after you for working with the Collectors."

The Broker remained in his seat, still only shifting his head to look to Shepard as he calmly responded, "It was a mutually beneficial partnership. Fortunately, the _Normandy_'s IFF will let me salvage the remains of the Collectors' base."

Bev communed with Rang about using the surrounding support beams as cover when they attack the Broker, but until then he knew the Broker's network was a necessity for galactic politics to remain stable. "Listen: if you let Feron walk out with us, we'll leave you to continue, for now."

"You won't be walking out at all." There was a hint of rage in his voice, subtle, but Bev was able to hear it.

T'Soni on the other hand wasn't planning on letting the Broker live past today, "You're quite confident for someone with nowhere left to hide."

"You travel with fascinating companions, doctor. If you Mandalorians would only trade your language and technology, I'm certain we could have been excellent business associates."

"Yeah like we'd be stupid enough to do that! You'd sell it and every merc that wants to kill us will be able to understand us. You listen here, you stretched out Bith-faced azure mouth, either we all walk away or I sink this ship." Rang pulled out a thermal detonator, "I figured since all of the power conduits converge into this one room, a big enough explosion will send us falling like a brick into water."

"Along with you…"

"Yeah, but I figure if I can destroy your little info empire, it might be worth it."

Bev spoke to Rang privately, "We'll call that plan Z, for now let's just see how this unfolds."

Rang started spinning the thermal detonator on his finger, "But I guess I love this mug of mine too much to do that, unless I'm gonna die anyway," he popped it up into the air before catching it.

The Broker has seen the destructive capabilities of a thermal detonator from his secret cameras, and he believed he still had an advantage. "It's pointless to challenge me. You all fumble in the dark, while I know every secret."

"Is that right?" Liara paused for a moment, "You're a yahg, a pre-spaceflight species quarantined to their homeworld for massacring the Council's first contact teams. This base is older than your planet's discovery, which probably means you killed the original Shadow Broker sixty years ago, then took over. I'm guessing you were taken from your world by a trophy hunter who wanted a slave…" The Broker's fins started to rapidly flap as T'Soni smirked, "or a pet. How am I doing?"

The Broker finally stood up, displaying his true size to them as they started to shift their positions. Without warning, the Broker smashed his desk with a single punch, quickly grabbing a half and tossed the half at Shepard and Liara. Shepard was able to barely jump out of the way with T'Soni while Rang was just able to get behind the support beam as the table smashed into it.

Shepard and T'Soni fell back behind the support beams as well while the Broker let out a roar and grabbed a Revenant Light Machine Gun with only one hand. "Oh he's an angry one!"

"Shut up and shot him!"

The Broker turned his fire on Rang before quickly shifting to Bev, then Shepard. Even though he was able to keep them down for a few moments, the number of them was working to their advantage against the Broker. Finally breaking through his shielding and armor, the Broker stopped firing. He bunkered down as particles started swirling around his hand and an energy field emitted around him. Rang tried to shot through as Liara tossed a biotic sphere, but they both bounced off. "The shield's kinetically sensitive! Energy and projectiles are bouncing off!"

Bev grabbed one of his force pikes as Shepard cracked his knuckles. "Then we do this the hard way." Bev quickly moved behind the Broker as Shepard sent a left jab to the Broker's face. Bev used his pike like a bat, smashing it into his back and sending him right into Shepard's right hook and staggered back. Shepard and Bev rushed him only for the Broker to activate his omni-tool as it emitted a massive shield that sent the two back.

Liara helped Shepard up as Rang kept his weapon on the Broker. They retreated back to cover as the Broker now used his shield to block their shots. Liara threw out a singularity field on the Broker, staggering him long enough for the others to shot at him. The Broker quickly recovered and started to move closer on Shepard's position. Rang bounced a grenade to the Broker's feet, forcing him to activate his 'super' shields to protect him. In the confusion of the smoke Shepard used his Revenant and bashed the Broker's face. Bev rushed out trying to use his pike to try and skewer the Broker, but he recovered faster than he anticipated, using his shield to block the pike. Shepard and Rang moved up as they were trying to help Bev, pushing against the Broker's shield until the brute threw all three of them back.

Liara tried to attack the Broker with another biotic attack only for the Broker to reactivate the shielding for a few seconds. As the trio recovered, Rang looked up to the ceiling the seemed to be trying to stay under while fighting them. "Bev, h_aa'tayli laam_! _Mirdir mhi pirimmu bic_?"

"'_Lek_. Commander, T'Soni. We need to get him to bring up that shield one more time!" The team returned to cover as the Broker made another push on the squad. While Rang and Shepard continued to goad the Broker, Bev took this time to talk with Liara about his plan. "The shielding strains the info net for a few moments after discharging it. Think your biotics can handle it?"

Liara looked out to the room as the Broker rammed himself into the pillar Rang was behind. "It shouldn't be too difficult."

Bev moved around behind the Broker, shooting his exposed back and forcing the Broker to activate the shields. Shepard and Rang stayed behind cover as Bev moved out of cover with his force pike fully extended. The Broker roared at him before the two started to charge each other. Bev looked ready to strike as the Broker ran full speed with his shield in front. The Broker swung the shield, but Bev slid below the shield's arc, pushing himself out of the light with his pike, "T'Soni!"

The Broker turned to Liara just as she launched a biotic attack that flew above the Broker's head. Liara quickly used her biotics and cracked an opening in the glass as energy started to flow down. The pressure from the energy forced the Broker down on all fours as he tried to break free. As more energy started to pour over the Broker, who was now unable to pull himself out, roared before his body exploded. The shockwave sent Bev back and T'Soni released her control over the energy as it slowly returned to normal.

Rang walked over to his down brother as he helped him up, "Now that's was fun!"

With the sudden release of energy, the lights within the Broker's ship deactivated for a moment before coming back online. As the systems came back online, a number of screens displayed behind the remains of the Broker's deck. Suddenly one of them started to receive a transmission, _"Shadow Broker, this is Operative Murat. We had a momentary connection failure. Can you confirm status?"_

_"Operative Shora requesting update. Are we still online?"_

_"Shadow Broker, I've lost our feed. We are online and awaiting instructions." _One by one more of the Shadow Broker's agents were requesting status updates and inquiring a situation report.

* * *

As more and more agents started to try and contact the Broker, they all finally received a response, "_This is the Shadow Broker. The situation is under control. We experienced a power fluctuation while upgrading hardware. It disrupted communications momentarily._" Feron, having freed himself during the power outage and killing his only guard, rushed over to the Shadow Broker's office, ready to kill the monster. When he arrived however he found Bev and T'Soni at the intercom.

"However, we are back online. Resume standard procedures. I want a status report on all operations within the next solar day. Shadow Broker out."

Finally allowing the injuries catch up to him, Feron limped over to the two, "Goddess of oceans…it's you. You…how?"

"Well, everyone who's ever seen him in person is dead, so…"

"…You're the new Shadow Broker."

"You two sure about this? Oh, and don't forget to lift the bounty off our heads."

"It was either that or lose everything: his contacts, his trading sources. Those will really help us. With the Shadow Broker's information network, I can give you…I can…" Liara was holding herself back.

Seeing this was none of his business, Feron excused himself, "I'll, uh, check the power systems."

While Shepard consoled Liara for two years of revenge turned into a rescue, Bev started browsing the files. "Hmm…no user restrictions, passwords, or safeguards. We have complete and total access of everything…"

"Looks like the Broker didn't adhere to Rule 70: Plan to live forever, expect to die today."

"Is it wrong? Is it wrong that part of me wants this?" Liara turned back to Shepard. "With the Shadow Broker's network, I can help you. Maybe I can turn this operation into something better."

Rang happily voiced his opinion, "An operation like this turning a new leaf…it'll take time. I'm sure it can be down within your lifetime, doc. But just try to remember that Earthling saying, 'Absolute power corrupts absolutely'."

Shepard knew she could handle herself. He watched as Bev scoured the data before he turned to Liara, "Don't be a stranger this time."

"Small chance of that. Come back soon." With that Shepard walked away, alone, while Liara and the Mandalorians remained.

* * *

**Illium**

The Mandalorians and Samara were still holding their own, but eventually the Shadow Broker's agents would overpower them by sheer numbers. Just as Prudii was about to kill another truck driver, the Shadow Broker agents started to pull back. Aran couldn't tell if they were retreating or simply regrouping. He immediately contacted his crew, "_Tervho_, this is Araniik. What's your status?"

"_There were a few incursion attempts by Shadow Broker operatives. Nothing we couldn't handle._"

"Good, cause for some reason they broke off from trying to kill us."

"So what do we do now?"

"The only thing we can do Jak, fall back to the _Tervho_ and bunker down, while making sure we don't have any unwanted tails. And Prath, if you can, could you pay off Rang's tab, with his account. I doubt he'll remember to."

* * *

Prath used one of the _Tervho_'s unseen docking ports and snuck his way over to the Eternity Bar, "Well if it isn't Prath. How've you been, short round?"

"As adequate as I can be." He grabbed a nearby crate to stand on to hand Aethyta a datapad. "Everything Rang owes you, plus a little interest."

Aethyta looked over the numbers before putting it under the counter, "Thanks I'm sure my boss will be thrilled."

"I still question why a matriarch has lowered herself to such a meek position."

"I already told you guys why."

"Of which I still don't accept." Prath stepped back down, "I do hope you find yourself in a better position soon. Good day, Aethyta."

As Prath waddled toward the exit he couldn't help but overhear an asari and quarian, "It's okay. I'll think of something."

"You said Synthetic Insights would buy me! You said it was an easy sale!"

"I assumed they would want an AI tech." The asari finally noticed Prath walk up to them, "Hello, can I help you with something?"

"Yes, I was interested in acquiring a contract for an indentured servant. Would you happen to be holding any at the moment?"

The asari glanced to the quarian for a moment before she turned back to Prath, "I do, however I don't believe she would be to your needs."

"I see. And if I may pry, what led the young Migrant Fleet-clan to sign such a contract?"

The quarian's body language indicated it was something she felt rather ashamed of. "I tried to play the stock market. I'm good with numbers, and I thought I had a way to make unlimited money. I lost everything. Then I got a credit line and lost that. Then I took out an illegal loan. You get the picture."

"As part of our agreement, I paid off her debts. Five years from now, she'll have a fresh start and excellent work references."

"You know my dear, the stock market and calculating numbers are two very different fields. Without an understanding of economics, one is destined to fail even with a sufficient knowledge of numbers." Prath saw that his words seemed to only make the quarian feel worse about the situation. "Ah, but I don't understand why this should be any trouble for you Thessia-clan. Why don't you nullify her contract?"

"I would if I could. Since Synthetic Insights doesn't seem to want to buy her, the costs to house and feeding her will cost me a fortune."

"Exactly." Prath then point to the quarian, "The indentured servant contract can be removed if you claim health or medical necessity."

The asari thought about it for a moment before she saw where Prath was going, "Your right! She will be free, and 80 percent of my contract price will be refunded! It was never meant to apply to quarians, and they'll close that loophole after we use it, but it will work for us!" The asari pulled out a few credits, "Thank you! Here, for your trouble. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go free my slave."

"Thank you. I'll stay out of trouble this time."

"Not at all Migrant Fleet-clan." Prath stopped himself and turned back to the quarian, "Oh, and once your contract has been nullified, I believe I know a place where you can find work. Docking Bay 94, a turian frigate. Just tell them Prath sent you."

* * *

The Mandalorians had bunkered down and shifted everything within the ship to defend a siege attempt, both from the docking port and from the main hangar bay. This intense waiting was interrupted after a few hours by a Mandalorian access code input into the decontamination chamber.

Everyone remained on high alert as the door open until a very familiar voice shouted, "_Mhi yaim_!" Both Rang and Bev walked in with their helmets removed. "Sheesh, look at this place."

"Rang! Bev! Boy, are we glad it's only you guys!"

Professor Pyth and C3 however zoomed past everyone, an eager glimmer in her eyes suggested she was close to another breakthrough, as the other Mandalorians who were on the _Normandy_ now entered. Aran and Aay'han welcomed everyone back, "Glad to see everyone is in one piece. So how was the Broker's office?"

"Incredible! And you won't believe the goodies we found in there!"

"No time for that right now, Rang. We've have a set of coordinates to check out." Bev immediately walked over to the cockpit as he prepped the ship for takeoff.

Kix found his way up there, "So why are we leaving so suddenly?"

"Because I know why the Broker wanted to learn our language so badly."

"A moment, Beviin." Prath waddled his way past the barricade. "There is a young Migrant Fleet-clan woman that should be stopping by soon. I believe she'll be a great addition to the team."

"I didn't authorize any new recruits, Prath."

"I know. But seeing the Migrant Fleet-clan having put herself into such debt that she had to sign an indentured servant contract, I thought you and the others would have tried to help her. Also, with war coming, I thought I could use an assistant to predict, and help the economy. She did say she was good with numbers."

Samara walked out from the barricade and stopped at Aran, "Then if this incident with the Shadow Broker is finish, my purpose here is done as well. Goddess be with you and your people, Aran."

* * *

Recently a strange volus came out of nowhere and gave her help with her financial trouble and indentured servant contract. Now Hioja'Renar was walking to the ship in hope that the volus wasn't lying to her and this was some sick joke. As she looked at the ship, a krogan in a clean suit walked up to her, "Hello miss. I am a representative of Mr. Thax. I'm running a bit behind in my errands today. It seems you have business with them, so if you wouldn't mind delivering this message to them I would greatly appreciate it."

Hioja was hesitant at first until she finally took the datapad, "O…Of course not."

"Thank you. I'm certain the Mandalorians will also show you the same level of respect. Have a pleasant day."

_Mandalorians…maybe that volus wasn't full of hot air after all…_ After the incident with Cerberus almost two years ago now, every quarian has heard about the Mandalorians, and despite any rumors they might hear during their Pilgrimage, have been told to trust the Mandalorians should they ever befall into trouble they couldn't handle alone. Hioja knocked on the port door. "Hello? My name is Hioja'Renar. Prath said that there was work available here, and I have a message from a Mr. Thax."

There was no responds for several seconds before the doors opened. Hioja was hesitant at first, but she finally entered the decontamination chamber. Once she was inside the doors quickly closed behind her as an automated female voice started, "_Quarian life sign detected. Initiating Level 3 decontamination._"

The decontamination process reminded her of the amount of time she used to spend back in the ones on the Flotilla. After the decontamination finished the door leading into the ship slowly opened. A man in red and black armor with a tee visor stood in front of her, "Welcome. You can call me Aran, leader of the Mandalorians. I'll take that message." Aran took a moment to read through it before he laughed, "Just like you, huh Thax."

Aran handed the datapad off to his right to the same volus from before. "You!"

"Greetings once more, Migrant Fleet-clan. I'm glad you decided to show up. I believe this to be an opportunity you shouldn't refuse."

The volus waddled away before Aran started to speak again, "Prath tells me you're good with numbers. How good are you exactly?"

"Well I thought I had a fool proof way of getting an unlimited amount of credits from the stock market…before it quickly tumbled down."

"Prath seemed to thinks you have potential. Let's talk a bit more in private."

* * *

**A/N: **Just as a post from Clever Noob stated(in reference to a supposed leak of the ME3 DLC timetable), a new weapon pack DLC snuck its way out today for ME3's single player(the only good weapon I see is the N7 Typhoon).

_**Mandalorian Translation:** _

Bev, haa'tayli laam!(Bev, har-TIE-lee lahm)- Bev, look up!

Mirdir mhi pirimmu bic?(MEER-deer mee PEER-ee-moo beek)- Think we can use it?

'Lek.(LEK)- Yeah. A shorted version of 'elek', or yes.

Mhi yaim!(mee yaym)- We're home!


	79. A Crusade of unknown intent

**A/N: **OK, decided to finish this little part before finishing, sorry about all of that people, but the 'end' felt too abrupt. The 'sequel' will start after this arc, I sware this time!

* * *

Liara was invited to tour the new _Normandy_, stopping by to speak with Garrus and Tali in a lavishing dress. "I'm rather impressed by the ship."

"I know. She's much better than the original _Normandy_."

"And the Mandalorians were rather through when they left."

Tali paused for a bit, "Yeah…"

Liara looked over to Tali's console and spotted a few images of Tali and Prudii together at a variety of locations, "And I'm sure Prudii misses it too."

Tali quickly closed the windows, "Ah…I don't know…I…I mean, I should get back to working on this…"

"Don't worry. I'm sure wherever they are, they'll be fine."

* * *

Aran and Hioja'Renar continue to discuss her skills. "You aren't exactly a fighter but you are good with numbers, just like Prath said. Now here's a real question, how would you feel about working with advanced virtual intelligence units?"

Hioja found the question to be rather sudden, and unusual, "Well, I'm not sure. How advanced are we talking?"

"Experimental. Almost on par to an AI."

"So long as they are well controlled, there shouldn't be any problems."

Aran looked into her visor, staring at her for a moment before he got out of the seat, "I think you'll do just fine. Welcome aboard. Time to introduce you to the rest of the crew."

* * *

As Shepard and Liara continued to reminisce with a friendly glass of wine, Shepard finally asked her, "So what happened to the Mandalorians? Bev called them all to the Broker's ship and I haven't seen them since."

"The Shadow Broker had become rather desperate to acquiring even a portion of the Mandalorian language, and Bev found out why. There was an ancient burst transmission intercepted by salaraian exploration teams not long after the Citadel Council was establish. Xenoscientists have attempted to decipher the language but no one has had any luck. It seemed that when the Shadow Broker rose to power, he had all other records of the transmission deleted. When the Mandalorians established themselves, the Shadow Broker probably noticed similarities between their rather secretive language and the transmission." Liara now looked out the glass ceiling, "He believes the transmission might lead them to something special. And I'm almost certain he wanted this to be exclusively a Mandalorian thing."

* * *

After introducing the crew to their latest quarian crewmember, Bev had the ship set its sights on the Voyager Cluster as they started to head toward the coordinates designated on the Shadow Broker's terminal.

Kix leaned over to Bev, "Out in the middle of nowhere chasing a ghost of a signal that was picked up over two thousand years ago."

"Rule 14: There's no such thing as 'coincidence'. The Broker is the only one who has anything of that burst transmission, and it was all in ancient _Mando'a_. If we account for possible drift, scanning for any gravitational anomalies then we should find it…here…"

The _Tervho_ found a damage vessel of unusual design. From the outside, the damage seemed superficial at best but without further examination they wouldn't be able to say with certainty. At about 130 meters in length, the cockpit was separated from the ship and made to resemble an insectoid's head along with four sickle-like legs sticking out from below. Bev could count at least eight cannons on the vessels and another five missile launcher ports, all of which have seen their share of use. Kix turned on his comlink, "Uh…Araniik…I think we've found it!"

Aran moved up to the cockpit to look at the wreck himself. "Come on now, we've investigated derelict ships before. This isn't new people. We'll just have to be extra careful about booby-traps."

"How 'extra' are we talking here?"

"Prudii extra. Palva and the medics are on standby, while Prudii will be sent out to secure a line to one of the breaches. Once the cable is secured, Rang will slide over and handle any booby-traps that might still be on the ship. After we'll take a few of the power cells from the remains of the ARC-170 to access the logs and get their manifesto."

* * *

Alone in the darkness of space, Prudii looked around to find a secure position for the line for the others. He avoided a few of the holes due solely for the possibility of a mine or trip wire. Finally he found a hole and secured the line before entering the ship. Just when he landed he stepped on something rather unusual. It seemed to have been a three meter long snake, minus the head. Judging by the smooth cut the head was decapitated with a combat knife. And with nothing to feed on it, the body has remained relatively unchanged since death.

Prudii started looking around again and found a finally laid and fairly hidden trip wire next to the cockpit access. He marked it using a spray as the luminescent coloring covered the wire. Rang soon arrived as he started to look around the ship too, "Wow. Feels cozy don't it."

"Don't get comfortable. Dead Mandalorian."

"A Mando? Seriously?"

Rang drifted toward Prudii who had found a body fully armored in gold and left to rot. "Neo-Crusader."

"But the Neo-Crusaders were disbanded roughly four thousand years ago after they lost to the Republic! How could that be?"

Prudii looked around, "Tech's ancient. Maybe…"

"That's a big maybe."

"Secure the snake. Finish disarming the traps."

* * *

After finding and disabling over a hundred mines, IEDs and other makeshift traps, Araniik, C3 and Beviin brought over a handful of power cells as they tried to power up the basic systems. It took a few tries but they were finally able to get the systems up and running again. C3 quickly started to download all the logs recorded by the crew as well as any navigational data still available while the other started to explore more of the ship.

Aay'han was reliving his role as an advisor, monitoring their status and having to get a situation update, "_What are you seeing in there, Sigma?_"

"Alotta corpses with alotta holes."

Bev activated another door as more bodies floated out, "This doesn't make any sense. These are Neo-Crusader Shock Troopers, who could have done this to them?"

"Just another reason why we need to keep our eyes out for anything."

Rang suddenly stopped at a sign, "Hey, since this is a Neo-Crusader ship, the cargo hold will be packed with awesome weapons!"

Rang started to follow the signs as his brothers tried to catch up. "Wait!"

He opened the doors to the cargo hold as the lights slowly reactivated. What was revealed was almost breathtaking, "Low and behold bros, we hit the jackpot! Ah, I think I'm in love…" falling back, expecting one of them to catch him.

"By the Force…"

"_Bes'uliike_…real ones…and all those crates…"

Aran activated his comm., "Mandalorians, this is now a salvage operation. Anything we don't take from this ship will be destroyed."

* * *

With several more latches secured to the ship, the Mandalorians brought another crate of weapons as Prath and Hioja were creating a manifest of their own. "Now tell me, if that ship's volume is twice our own, the likelihood we could take everything of value, even with only 60% of it…"

"We couldn't. These machines alone are going to block potential storage space."

"True," the volus paused to breath, "Unless we disassemble a few so the others can fit. Remember, thinking creatively when it is available to you can be the difference between profit and failure. Jak, Forta. If you two could be so kind as to start disassembling a few of the _Bes'uiike_ so the others can fit?"

"We're on it." The crew was using the zero-g to their advantage as more crates started to float in as Forta and Jak both floated off to work on the Basilisks.

As that continued Rang took the unusual specimen to his lab for some experiments. "Now little one, let's see why you were on board."

* * *

After Legion's tip on the heretic geth experiment with weather altering technology, the _Normandy_ received an urgent message from Admiral Hackett. Admiral Hackett has just requested Shepard to go on a daring mission, alone, in batarian space to rescue a deep undercover operative named Dr. Amanda Kenson after uncovering evidence of an imminent Reaper invasion. "I have a hell of a squad with me. I'm sure they'd help out."

"_Kenson is my friend. If the batarians see a squad of armed soldiers, they'll kill her. This is serious, Commander. Go in with discretion, or don't go at all._"

"And the Mandalorians? Why don't you ask them?"

"_They're good. I'll admit that. But they aren't people I trust. Not with Kenson's life on the line._"

Shepard knew the Reapers were still on the march, but having heard Kenn and Gaby tell him how the Alliance blatantly denied the Reaper threat he had some personal doubts. "I thought the Alliance denies the Reaper threat. That must be some proof she found."

"_Kenson's team found an artifact out in batarian space. She believes it's a Reaper device, proof that the Reapers are indeed planning to invade. I've known her a long time. If she says she has proof, it's worth checking out._"

"I'll make this a priority."

"_The prison is hidden underground at a batarian outpost on Aratoht. I'll upload the coordinates now. Once she's secure, confirm her discovery. We'll debrief you when you're back._"

"Got it."

"_Hackett out._"

With Hackett gone, Shepard looked over his terminal, "This is going to be one hell of a mission…"

* * *

After a long deciphering, Bev was able to translate the logs and review them. The others Mandalorians were able to secure all of the functioning weapons and gear, including the ship's various armaments, shielding and hyperdrive, before sending the ship and her crew off to the nearest star for a proper Mandalorian funeral. As the Mandalorians watched the ship slowly floated off Prudii turned to Aran, "Sir…"

"Yeah, I know."

Hioja couldn't help but wonder why they'd waste such a good ship. "I still don't understand why we didn't keep the ship? Overall structural integrity was still adequate. The Flotilla could have…"

"Because, it doesn't belong." Rasen walked over to Hiioja's side. "Mandalorians are warriors, like the krogan, but we also care for their own, like us quarians. That ship will be with them in the next world, to ferry them to their next battles."

Aay'han walked over now, "Some of the gear we took is our way of remembering them. The other will be used for future conflicts, and the rest belongs to them. Not only that, but we have a bigger concur at the moment. What could have killed over eight hundred Mandalorian Shock Troopers, in their own ship, and leave little behind?"

"_We might be able to answer that._" Bev was on the intercom, "_Everyone should gather in the conference room if any of you want to hear this._"

* * *

Rang and Bev had everything prepped for their presentation as the Mandalorians gathered. The hologram displayed the ship without its damage, "This is a _Shaadlar_-type troopship, and this model happened to have been used by both Crusaders and Neo-Crusaders over four thousand years ago in two wars. From the records we were able to recover, these ancient Mandalorians were hunting an unknown ship discovered by Canderous Ordo."

"Canderous Ordo?" Lissarkh's talons started to cross over her scales trying to remember where she had heard that name before. She finally remembered from her studies long ago, "Mandalore the Preserver!"

"The very same, General. He was targeting an asteroid belt in the Crispin system to expose pirates and smugglers for target practice. From the reports an unidentified ship that was frozen among the rocks was exposed by a thermal detonator and fled to beyond the galactic rim. Canderous broke off, but Cassus Fett saw a potential threat. This ship was ordered to continue the pursuit and to return once the enemy had been evaluated."

"Yeah, too bad for them they found it." Rang took over as he displayed the remains of the serpent found within the ship. "She's a nasty little devil. Scans revealed the body reacts to an electrical impulse, probably produced by the brain. When I introduced an electrical current the body became ridged like a staff and it also produced an invisible field around the body like a razor's edge. Lucky I still have use of my fingers. Personally, I'm tempted to test this thing against a Jedi's lightsaber when it's electrically charged."

"So the snake wasn't just a stowaway, it was a living weapon. Who could have used it?"

"That question is answered by the crew, advisor." Bev took control as the hologram turned into ancient _Mando'a_ text from the logs. "This is the last entry we could find. The survivor talked about strange beings, humanoid in form, in pitch black armor of spines with ghost white skin. Faces like skulls, and living organic weapons, like the serpent that was used like a staff or spear when it wasn't trying to poison one of them. The creatures were relentless as they cut through the shock troopers and shook off their attacks like ticks. He admired them, though he knew he had to warn Mandalore. With his dying breath he had the power from the ship diverted so the burst transmission could continue until someone found it."

Nyona quickly pointed out, "That doesn't explain how the transmissions lasted for so long. The Citadel Council wasn't established for at least another thousand years from your time estimates."

"I said with his dying breath. The Taung are tougher than you give them credit. They are the original _Mando'ade_. If he knew what he was doing, he could have syphoned all of the ship's power to communications and have it only transmit every other year. A risky move to say the least, but the only way to ensure someone finds the signal."

Lissarkh stood up, "I am concerned about the ones who attacked these ancient Mandalorians. Where are they now? Why have we seen nothing like what has been described?"

C3 stared to buzz about, though with Hioja still new to the crew, Dagger translated it differently. "From what our navigational processor has been able to determine, the Mandalorians were attacked not long after they made the jump into hyperspace beyond the galactic rim. But they seemed to have made a random jump soon after. We have to assume that is when they were attacked. It's almost impossible to try and backtrack it."

"There goes another chance for us to get back home."

Rook smacked Jak's back, "Come on, don't sulk! We've got an enemy here to wipe out, and I want to see this one through."

"What enemy?"

"That's right," Aran looked over to Hioja, "we haven't filled you in yet. We'll discuss about them at a later…"

Unfortunately Pyth barged into the room with a pile of papers and datapads. "Araniik, I've found it! I've found my answer!" Pyth activated her omni-tool as the holo emitter displayed an image of Sovereign. "Their form was never designed for flight in general, because the original organic form was aquatic!"

"Pyth."

She couldn't hear him as she rambled on, "After reducing the possible form origins, I then started to compile various movement patterns to study and compare them to. Working from the original 'squid' notion, as suggested by commando Rang, I quickly removed them from the possibility seeing how their mode of movement actually works in a completely opposite direction."

"Pyth!"

"I now see that they actually 'fly' in a similar fashion to a decapod crustacean swimming."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, you're telling us their bodies are just giant crabs!"

"Actually I was referring more to shrimps or lobsters, due to their elongated bodies, tail fins and movement patterns, Rang."

"Professor Pyth!" Aran was finally able to get her attention, "We'll discuss all of your finding at another time. Right now I don't want to overwhelm our newest crewmember."

Pyth looked around and spotted an unknown quarian in dark green envirosuit. "Oh my!" Pyth quickly deactivated the image as she gathered her material, "Please forgive me miss. I do hope you will find the Mandalorians to be a friendly bunch. And I would like to discuss my findings as soon as possible, Araniik."

"We will, you just have to wait. And until then I want as many of the cannons from the _Shaadlar_ to be fitted onto the _Tervho_. But leave one turbolaser and ion cannon untouched, I've got plans for those two, and they require your contacts Prath."

* * *

Shepard has evaded the batarian's security on Aratoht, only having to deal with a few varrens scattered about the tunnels beneath the secret facility. Shepard found a few logs, as well as listened to a few batarians talking about Kenson and her team. Without the batarians realizing he was there, Shepard snuck past another pair while they were talking, "This one's apparently the mastermind."

"If she doesn't talk, kill her."

While moving around them, Shepard stopped only because he noticed something fairly familiar. There were two bodies in bags along with a lot of blood, most of which was used to paint a Reaper on the wall.

Shepard quickly moved down the hall and opened the door just as the batarian was moving a tazer into position to start the interrogation. Shepard tapped his shoulder before punching the batarian guard in the face. An elder woman, bound by her neck and arms looked to him, "Who are you? What are you doing?"

Shepard moved behind her as he activated his omni-tool to unlock her restraints. "Doctor Kenson? I'm Commander Shepard. I'm here to get you out."

"Commander Shepard? I'd heard you were alive. Hackett must have received my message."

The mechanical arm moved away as Shepard finished deactivating the magnetic locks, "We're not safe here. Can you walk?"

Kenson's arms were freed, grabbing the latch around her neck and forced them open herself. She stopped to flex her muscles after having been bound for so long, "I'm fine. Just give me a moment."

"We have to go. Now."

Handing her an M-4 Shuriken as she checked it, "If we can find a console, I can hack security…make us an escape path."

The alarms started to go off as a guard was moving closer. "Then we'll find one. Go!"

Kenson had the batarian guard pinned by her foot before she finally stomped down on his larynx. "Ready."

Over the loudspeaker, one of the batarians started shouting, _"The ringleader escaped! Get your asses out there and stop them!" _Shepard waited for the batarian before he surprised him with a shotgun to the gut.

* * *

With the crew swapping out the current cannons for the turbolasers and ion cannons, Dagger wanted to discuss another matter with Aran. "Remember how I was concerned about rigging the hyperdrive from the ARC to the _Tervho_?"

"Yeah. You were worried because she was a frigate and the hyperdrive was originally for a starfighter."

"Well the _Shaadlar_ was basically a frigate. Her hyperdrive rating was supposed to be a two. And we did say we could, theoretically, fit this ship with a hyperdrive."

Aran turn back to view his crew working hard to securing the cables. "Alright, but I want every precaution taken, and then I want C3 to run ever possible test before we even think about using the hyperdrive. I don't any malfunctions, especially relativistic shields. I'd hate to find out that the Reaper War is over before we have a chance to fight in it."

"Don't worry about that, we'll make sure everything is in working order."

"I wouldn't be surprised to hear C3 still being pissed at you for that 'navigational processor' thing."

"Come on, you know as well as she that I couldn't say 'she'. I'm sure she'll forgive me…eventually."

* * *

**A/N: **Aran and his Mandalorians just got a lot of goodies from this. Now personally, when Canderous told us the story about the unknown ship back in KOTOR, I said to myself Yuuzhan Vong yorik-stronha(go read Vector Prime if you don't know). And given the level of strategic genius Cassus Fett was, I doubt he'd let said unknown(at the time) ship go, especially after it fired thermal projectiles that easily melted Mandalorian armor. Oh, and the Basilisks, I'm using the more animal like ones, not the starfighter-esk one used in KOTOR II(that way we can keep the droid in war droid).

_**Mandalorian Translation:** _

Bes'uliik(BES-oo-LEEK)- basilisk war droid (lit. iron beast)

Shaadlar(SHAHD'lar)- move

Mando'ade(Mando-AH-day)- Mandalorians(pl) - sons and/or daughters of Mandalore

note* Shaadlar is a Mandalorian word, but it was also used to classify the troopship, odd I know.


	80. Be prepared

**A/N: **Now is the finale, at least for this story. Fret not for its sequel will pick up soon(not sure when because of all the new games releasing, and the Omega DLC).

* * *

A volus was waddling his way around the Presidium he soon received an unexpected message over his private omni-tool. "Hello?"

"_Rupe, my friend! I'm glad I caught you!_"

Rupe moved to a more private setting to continue their conversation without the worry of prying ears, "Prath? Why are you calling me all of a sudden?"

"_I have a business proposition I know you won't be able to refuse._"

"That's questionable. Elkoss Combine is still preforming rather well in these economically questionable times."

"_But of course. However, I've recently come into possession of some rather unique items._"

"How unique?"

"_Just trust me when I say no one in the galaxy has seen anything like it._"

"Sounds promising, however I'm not in the market for risky projects at the moment."

"_Wait Rupe! I'm not supposed to tell you this, but I will anyway._" Prath paused to check his surroundings, "_What if I told you this tech was related to the Mandalorians?_"

"Then my friend, I'd say we should do this rather quickly before you lose your job."

"_Excellent, then I'll have them sent over to your facilities on the Citadel as soon as possible. And I do hope the twelve percent finder's fee still applies?_"

"For you, I'll make it fifteen, if your tech is as fabulous as you are trying to make me believe…"

"_Oh don't worry, it'll be worth it. The next time we dock at the Citadel, I'll deliver them to you personally._"

* * *

Prath ended the conversation as he turned to Araniik, "Well, that went far better than I expected. When you're ready, I'll get the cannons over to Elkoss Combine and have them start fabricating and selling them to the Turian Hierarchy. In the mean time I'll be working on acquiring the patients for them."

"Good, that should help everyone, ship to ship wise. Now we need to start doing something for ground forces."

"Already working on that…" Bev stated as he walked past the two on his way to help Rasen in engineering.

C3 rolled past, inspecting every step as everyone was busily working to incorporate the _Shaadlar_'s hyperdrive. Aran quickly tried to stop his brother, "What do you mean?"

Bev activated both omni-tools, one to work on the drive core while the other displayed a Basilisk war droid, "I have a secure link to the Shadow Broker's base. With a bit of convincing, I had Liara patent the components for us before we commissioned several different companies to start production on the components so we can assemble them later. I was thinking about using the defunct Hahne-Kedar mech facility we shut down for the assembly process. After we ensure the virus has been scrubbed from the systems."

Rasen turned to Bev, "I'm not so sure. Who are we going to get to ride them? I can't exactly envision a platoon of turians using them."

Bev looked back toward the hangar, "I didn't have the turians in mind when I saw them…"

Rasen quickly caught on, "Are you sure? I mean, you know their leader, but what's to stop them afterwards?"

Aran confidently placed a hand on her shoulder, "Don't worry, we've got Vren to help keep them in line."

* * *

While most of the crew was busy working on refitting the _Tervho_, Rang was going through the rest of the weapons. "Mandalorian rippers! Heavy blasters! Heavy repeaters! Assault rifles! _Shuk'oroke_! God I wish we could have kept at least one disintegrator…"

Aay'han was watching over him as he was going through the weapons, "You really want to give this galaxy disintegrators?"

"Not particularly. Doesn't mean I don't want to see them used on the Reapers."

"You always looked at everything in short terms, Rang." Aay'han started to look over the weapons himself, "Once this war with the Reapers ends, what do you think will happen with these weapons we're going to distribute? Disruptors would only mess things up."

"No more than the common blaster pistol but we're planning to ship them off to war anyway. Oh wait, we're giving them bloody ion cannons and turbolasers to mass produce!"

Prudii pulled out a _beskad_ from its sheath, "And this?"

Tare turned around as he saw Prudii pull it out, "I thought that professor friend of yours might find some use for it. She did say she was more proficient with a blade then a staff."

Aay'han pat Tare's back, "Nice call, kid. I'm sure she'll have fun deciphering all of the family trinkets on it as a bonus. So do we know how distribution is going to work?"

"Umm…" Hioja was still in the cargo bay while this conversation was going on, "I've been trying to work it out…" Hioja handed Aay'han what she had thus far, "Given how powerful the weapons were, I thought about the krogan because they've been demilitarized, but then again krogan stockpile weapons already. The turians also have their own supply of weapons readily available to them and…"

"And we have to think about the resources stretched out during times of war." Nyona walked over and grabbed the datapad from Aay'han as she started to mess with the numbers Hioja already had inputted, "Krogans, I agree with your numbers, they won't need much. Turians will need a bit more than what you had in mind. The asari and salarians will definitely need more than these. Not too many to the batarians, I don't want to see them start going power mad again. That pissing contest with the humans wasn't exactly fun. Humans get a modest amount, leaving quarians…" Nyona looked to Tare and Hioja, "So long as your Admiralty Board isn't stupid enough to go to war with the geth, I'd say they get what's left over."

"You're rather good at this, ma'am…"

Nyona tossed the datapad back to Aay'han as she walked away from them to help reorganize the Basilisk parts, "That's what happens when you fight a few wars on Omega, kid."

Prudii sheathed the blade and walked over to Hioja, "Don't worry. She just acts like an ass. She'll warm, eventually."

"While we're on the subject, when is she going to go through the initiation?" Rang pointed his fingers to Hioja.

Hioja seemed a bit nervous after Rang said that, however Tare eased her worries, "It's nothing too strenuous. It's just a few oaths they want you to make, to ensure everyone's safety."

Prudii added, "After that we'll craft her armor like Rasen's. Color's up to you though."

* * *

Kix took this time to contact their distant brother about this amazing find, "I really think you might want to consider coming back here soon, especially because of this haul…"

"_I can only imagine. Give me another day with the pup, and I think he should be set. After all of this he should be able to handle himself on his own with relative ease. The only thing besides a Reaper that might stop him would be Kalros!_"

"Kal-who?"

"_Never mind. I can't wait to see everyone again. And that new quarian should be fun to scare._"

"Don't waste your time. She's already been introduced to Drok and Jorgal, they already stole your thunder."

"_Figures…Well, see ya when ya pick me up. I've got plenty of stories to tell ya._"

"As do I…"

* * *

After two days of hard work and coordination, the _Tervho_'s refits were nearly competed. Equipped with four ion cannons and three turbolasers, along with the _Shaadlar_'s shields, the Mandalorians were gearing themselves for war and Vren liked it. "You guys scored somthin' fierce!"

Aay'han and Prudii were with him as they were going through the weapons with Vren. "So big fella, you want to swap out your Z-6 for a Mandalorian heavy repeater?"

Vren picked up the repeater, gauging the weight of the weapon and started to rotate the weapon's barrels. Vren swapped between the two weapons before he finally grabbed the Z-6, "Nah. This is my baby now. I'm sure other krogans will love using them."

"You think we're giving them to the krogan?"

Vren laughed as he turned to Prudii, "Well, once Wrex declares his support for the war effort, we'll be supplying them with extra firepower. Why else did you guys grab all of these weapons," Vren looked back toward one of the intact Basilisks, "and these bad boys? I can't exactly see a salarian or quarian riding one of these into battle. A turian or human maybe, but they've got krogan written all over them."

Forta came out of the elevator running, "Guys, you won't believe this! The Bahak system is gone!"

"Gone?"

"The mass relay connecting to the system suddenly stopped functioning. Aran's talking to Anderson to try and find out what's going on."

* * *

Privately, Aran was being briefed by Councilor Anderson and Admiral Hackett of the situation. "With all due respect sir, you should have come to us first. We could have avoided this fiasco in its entirety."

"_That wasn't your call to make, Aran. We couldn't risk the batarians seeing your people. They're aware of the Mandalorian-Alliance relation._"

"Regardless, Admiral, my men are specialists in stealth and infiltration. I could've sent Prudii alone and the batarians would have never known he was there. And we have the numbers and resource to avoid the following events that occurred on that asteroid."

Anderson finally shouted, "_Enough! We can debate who was right and who wrong later. Right we need to start talking about our next move._"

"I understand Councilor…"

"_I've given up that job. I'm just an admiral now._"

"Well it's too bad, sir. We could have used you when the war hits and the politicians want to pretend it's not happening, but it'll be good to see you fighting. But what about the Commander?" turning to Hackett.

"_We're going to have to put him on trial to protect him from the batarians…_"

"You mean use him as a scapegoat!"

"_I didn't say that!_"

"No but what your suggesting is the same damn thing. No matter. I'd suggest the Alliance start saving their credits, cause I think Elkoss Combine is about to put out some rather 'unique' items soon."

"_Does this have something to do with all these activities your people have been doing?_"

"Take it as you will, Hackett. I've got a few things I need to attend to soon." Aran cut the communication with Anderson and Hackett and walked back to the CIC. "Kix, Bev. Get us to the Citadel. Prath, I need you to set me up with a news interview."

"With which news crew?"

"See if Miss. Wong is still interested. 'Bout the only news reporter on the entire Citadel that I trust. And make sure it's live, I don't want anyone to edit anything."

* * *

"Welcome to a very special live broadcast of Citadel NewsNet. I'm Emily Wong. With me today is the illustrious, and somewhat mysterious, leader of the Mandalorians, Araniik Tervho. Now Araniik, it was you who contacted my producers to get this interview. Rather unusual since many other news networks have tried, and failed, to get you to talk with them when you mysteriously started working almost three years ago now."

"Well Miss. Wong, truth be told I never really liked news reporters. However you're different. You're not after ratings or reviews, you're after the hard facts, the truth. A dependable person through and through."

"Thank you, but why ask for this interview to be broadcasted live?"

"Because there's a few things I need to put out to the galaxy, and the news is often the fastest way to do it. Next to gossip, but eventually the true meaning is lost. So if you won't mind me going on for a bit before asking any questions. First, the Mandalorians will not be accepting any new contracts at this time and any contracts currently being pursued will be put on hold until a designated time. While on the matter, I also would like to extend a temporary truce with any merc bands or pirates we may have developed rivalries with over our careers. Second, the Mandalorian people are declaring our support to any race, be it apart of the Citadel or not, in their greatest time of need. Finally, I'm revealing my Spectre status. Now Miss. Wong, any questions?"

Emily and many of the others in the room were a little shocked by Aran's last declaration. But Emily, being the professional that she was quickly snapped to it, "That was…a lot to take in all at once. So why is it that you have decided to proclaim your people's support so vaguely? Do you have a source that would suggest more colonies will go missing beside humans?"

Aran leaned back a bit into the chair now, "Well you can never be too certain about things, especially with these trying times. And I fear we, as a galactic community, aren't exactly ready for it."

"And now, about you revealing your Spectre status, does that also mean the allegations that the original four Mandalorians are all Spectres?"

"I've only said that I'm a Spectre, not my brothers. And the only reason I'm revealing it now is to show the galaxy that we are serious about our declarations I've proclaimed today. Oh, and I almost forgot one more thing. From now on the galaxy will refer to me as Mandalore the Cunning, or just simply Mandalore."

* * *

While Aran was busy with the interview, Prath was meeting with his longtime friend, Rupe Elkoss. "Ah, Prath, when I received your latest message I didn't think you'd be bringing some of your…friends," referring to the turian and asari in Mandalorian armor.

"Without them, I would never have been able to get these cannons off the ship undetected. Just trust me, they're getting a cut from my profits, nothing you have to concern yourself with."

"If you say so," Rupe signaled his people to move up and take the two cannons. "They are interesting, but what makes them so special?"

"Well, the one to your left is what the Mandalorians called a turbolaser. When they test fired the others, it shot a concentrated plasma energy that destroyed a frigate size asteroid with a single shot. The other is an ion cannon."

"An ion cannon?"

"Effectively it's a giant EMP blast put into a focused beam that only shuts down the electronics of what was targeted. You might have to test fire them a few times before you get it all down perfectly, for ship fitting and fabrication."

Rupe watched as his people moved the cannons into the warehouse, "This might be more profitable then I had originally anticipated."

Prath grabbed Rupe's shoulder, "I'm sorry to do this to you Rupe, but I need you to sell the first batches you produce to the Hierarchy and the Alliance."

"I'm detecting you have something up your sleeves."

"The Mandalorians have already made patients on them so I have to convince Araniik on the benefits of this deal. He wants us to visit Palaven and Earth anyway. I still have my contacts with their contractors. I can get out a few demo shots and get them interested. Free advertisement."

Rupe extended a hand out to Prath, "Always thinking twelve steps in advanced. I love our business arrangements, you bring me the product to produce and the buyers, and we both still get rich."

* * *

After the interview was over and the cameras were turned off, Aran wanted to speak with Emily one more time, privately. "Miss. Wong, thank you for taking this time to indulge my selfish request."

"Well I actually didn't mind, Mandalore. I'm sure my bosses will be head over heels to see the rating for this one."

"Which actually brings me to a question I wanted to ask you personally, off camera. I believe having a reporter onboard ships, reporting on things as they happen, might be a great moral support for people. But it can't just be anyone. The reporter has to be someone the crew will respect, as well as the rest of the galaxy acknowledges. I think our interview helped with the second one."

"Wait…Are you asking me to do what I think you want me to do?"

"If it's not too much trouble. A lot of my people like you."

"Th…this is so sudden. I mean I'd be stupid to say no, but I already planned to pursue another story. I…"

Aran activated his omni-tool, "You don't have to answer right now. But whatever you decide, contact us. See ya around the galaxy, Miss Wong."

* * *

As Aran was leaving the news station to return to the _Tervho_, he stopped about halfway. He entered a secluded alleyway that seemed completely unused by the inhabitants of the station beyond the keepers. Once he was away from the main populace, Aran turned around, "So do I have to flush you out, or are you going to show yourself?"

Out of the shadows walked a female figure with a hood to obscure her face. "Still haven't lost your edge I see. I'm surprised you actually went and did that broadcast, especially without any weapons on you."

Aran drew out his wrist vibroblade, "Now who said anything about being disarmed. I always have a trick or two up one of these sleeves. So why are you here, Tishad?"

She pulled her hood back to reveal her scale covered face, "Well, I guess I noticed your rather subtle call for recruits during your interview. And I guess I'm the first of our 'friends' to accept your call."

Aran withdrew the blade, "You remember that talk we had about Shepard?"

"Of those you told, who could forget? You talked about that Sovereign thing as though it wasn't made by the geth."

Aran pulled out a datapad from his pack and handed it off to the drell, "It's not. This was extracted from the Collectors, at their base beyond the Omega-4 Relay."

Tishad read through the data and couldn't help herself as she blurted, "Goddess of Oceans…"

"And since we only delayed them two years ago, it's time we gathered every recourse we can and start bunkering down. The general populace doesn't want to hear or think about these kinds of things, that why they have people like you and me. I just hope the others catch on."

Tishad looked back, "All of the good ones will, and they'll wait on the Citadel since it seems you already had plans to go somewhere."

Aran waved his arm as Tishad now followed him, "Palaven. I've got someone who wants to speak with the Primarch."

"The Primarch isn't exactly the kind of guy you can just walk up to and say 'hello'."

"Which is why she's got personal connections with him," Aran turned back to Tishad, "And If isn't too much of a hassle, could you stay here and watching over the others until we get back?"

* * *

It took some time before the Turian Hierarchy allowed the Mandalorians on their world, and during this time Prath was attempting to sell the turians on a future 'investment' with Elkoss Combine. With that underway, Palva went directly to Primarch Fedorian's office. As she was about to open Fedorian's door another turian's talons bumped into hers. Palva looked up to find a rather familiar face she hadn't expected to see, "Vakarian?"

"Palva. Why are you here, and in that armor?"

"I could be asking you the same question. Well, except for the armor part."

Vakarian noticed the medical cross on her shoulder, along with the Mandalorian skull wrapped around it. "So you're the Mandalorian medic that patched up my son."

"After everything we've been though together, I had to do my best. That and I didn't think he needed to know about our past." Palva turned toward the window, "So how's your wife?"

"She's been better. She's recently been selected as a trial member for an experimentally salarian treatment for Corpalis Syndrome."

"Corpalis…I sorry," Palva looked to Vakarian's claws, tempted to grab hold, "I can only assume why you're here. Did your son tell you about…"

"Yes. From the start when he first met Commander Shepard to more recent events. Our people aren't ready for war. At least, not on the scale that's to come."

Palva turned back to Fedorian's door, "So who get to blast at Fedorian first on bolster our people's defenses?"

Vakarian activated the switch, "I'll throw the first punch. We keep pushing back and forth until he caves. Just like back in basis."

Palva was smiling beneath her helmet, "For Palaven…_ner cyar'ika_."

* * *

**A/N: **There may be a calm before a storm, but the Mandalorians are really rustling up a typhoon across the galaxy before the tsunami.

_**Mandalorian Translation:** _

Shuk'oroke(shoo-KOH-rok-ay)- crushgaunts, basically Mandalorian super gauntlets that allowed its wearers to crush most material with relative ease

beskad(BESS-kahd)- slightly curved saber of Mandalorian iron

ner cyar'ika(nair shar-EE-kah)- my sweet.

And for those who want to know Mandalore's new name-

Te Hodayc Mand'alor(teh HOH-daysh MAHN-dah-lor)- Mandalore the Cunning


End file.
